Playing it By Ear

February 17, 20081

She stared at the coffin waiting for him to rise back up but she knew it would never happen. She couldn’t believe that she didn’t notice his pain. The priest began to read a psalm. Schueler knelt down on the bar and bent her head. The sweet burn of the incense filled her nose. Hot tears ran down her cheeks as she watched, Brother Fern swing the urn over the white sheet that hid Andrew from view. If she gad known maybe months before when something could have been done. But once he made his mind there was nothing I could do. Was There? Schueler allowed her fingers brush lightly against the coffin as it passed. She could remember everything about him. Like the first day they had met.2

May 23, 19993

Schueler stared at the computer blindly. This could not be happening to her. Schueler typed her keyboard one more trying to communicate her urgency to the processor. The screen again showed the same message she had seen in the last few weeks. PERSON NOT FOUND. PLEASE CHECK YOUR INFORMATION. COURTESY OF THE COUNTRY INTERNATION ASSOCIATION. Schueler had never been fooled by those words. It was obvious from growing up in a militant family. It maybe different words but it had the same letters. CIA. The base was the home of several families with immediate family members in high ranked service. Schueler was in the care of her biological aunt and uncle but she longed for the family she had grown up knowing. She just couldn’t find them. It’s as if they disappeared off the face of the earth. Maybe this library just isn’t updated. Schueler glanced at date of the informational databases revision. April 15, 1998. Not much would change drastically. Schueler shut the computer down and kicked the desk angrily. She banged her head against the desktop and gritted her teeth. How was she ever going to get home if she couldn’t find their bloody address? Schueler smiled briefly. 4

'Bloody. My new favorite word. Perfect in this bloody town with no bloody mall. All the bloody people are bloody…bloody'. Schueler smirked. To keep people inside a haven ran by ex-licensed killers in order to protect the innocent from potential killers. A paradox or oxymoron. Either way it made no sense to Schueler. She wanted to back in Minneapolis hanging out with her friends. Her friends who hated bright colors like she did. The people she’d grown up with. Now she was stuck with stick size strangers she didn’t now from Adam. All this because it was far better for her to be with relatives rather than her godparents. Schueler bit back on the burning in her eyes. Crying was for the weak. A soldier’s daughter never cries. A soldier’s daughter never cries. Schueler looked up when she was sure no tears were coming. The library was buzzing with socializing butterflies. Schueler cursed under breath at the insanity. “Since when do you chat inside a library? That’s totally bogus. This place is bogus. Bloody bogus.” She just looked around and scowled. “It’s only bogus when you don’t understand the rules, Schueler. Remember what Catherine said ‘The art of simplicity is making peace with your complexities’.” Schueler spun around several times. She saw no one. The voice had been so close yet not just next to her closer. 'Aw, crap! I’m finally going insane from this place. Now I’m hearing voices. I gotta get outta here. I need fresh air!' She ran out of the library as fast as she could. 5

Schueler jumped down from the library’s steps and landed in a crouch on the sidewalk. She slowly rose and checked her surrounds. Coast clear. She broke into her strut. If anyone faced her they would start at her feet and work their way up. Just because that’s were the action starts. Her deep purple boxing prototypes kissed the sidewalk in a teasingly slowly fashion. Schueler’s sloes reached the cement but almost instantly they broke away. Though many girls in the Hinckley area wore shorts or skirts (even through the nine months of winter), Schueler stuck to her comfortable dark cargo pants that hung in a baggy manner from her hips. Also in contrary to the fashion do, Sky wore a long sleeved gray shirt under her tank top. A tank top that read “Ghuck da Maryns”. An inconspicuous antimilitary memorabilia she had bought when she learned of her new change of address. No one had figured it out yet, either that or no one cared. Any stranger could begin to see the tips of her fishtail braid swinging back and forth. And after that, her face would shock even close friends. Upon entering her care, Schueler’s Aunt Verna had outlawed face paint. So instead of her usual roses and thorns pictures, Sky’s swarthy face absorbed the light from the sun shining overhead. She dark brown eyes glared out in front of her. Both her lips and eyebrows were drawn into a frowns façade. But at that moment, she felt quite jolly. Even though once again her search had ended in a disappointment, now she got to go home and blog. She would tell the world about how much Hinckley sucked. She would email all her friend and complain about how she hated her life when Uncle Mark asked her how her day went. As long as she was miserable, Schueler was happy.6

She round the third block and sighed as the view of the Madison’s cottage came into view. It stood out amongst the brick and panel siding of the other abodes. But that’s one of the things that had kept her from running away that first night. 'At least these people were nonconformists. Even if they didn’t know it yet.' Verna Madison had requested to have an English cottage sort of home, even if it cost a little more for the custom design. Sky shook her head, wonder how much more the cottage had cost than the brick farmhouse. She hopped up the steps and turned around surveying the wide-open neighborhood inside a gated society. She was searching for the figure that always stepped out of the shadows next to the corner store alley. Everyday, Schueler had seen a small figure step out of the shade and lean against the wall. 'Probably on his break'. 7

She looked at person. To anyone she considered normal they would do one of two things either become paranoid and assume that someone was after them. The other option would be to ignore the person completely. Schueler wouldn’t choose either of these, because in her definition she wasn’t normal. Instead for the past week and a half she had sat and stared at the person trying to guess what was going through his head. From faraway they would have a conversation based of gesticulations. She would sit until he noticed her. Then he would nod his head. 8

She would repeat the gesture and look up at the sky as if to say, “Why is it always sunny here?” He would then shrug and shake his head, in her mind it meant to be as a confirmation of what her uncle had already told her. 9

“I don’t know. But it isn’t always sunny. Just wait till the rain comes and you’ll be thankful.” 10

Sky then would stretch and roll her eyes along with her head telling him that she preferred the rain to sun any day. Then he would nod slowly as if he already knew. Then their communication would stop. Shy had contemplated going up to him a couple times but didn’t think it was a good idea. Sure he looked like a teen from a distance, but he could easily be like twenty. So she always sat in her spot until he went back behind the shadows until tomorrow. 11