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A Murder at Sea
A Navy cadet with the face of a hammer and a name that sounded like a question found me over at JP’s on S Bouldin St watching Lamar and Derrick Henry play against that team that — for reasons that still eluded me — reminded me of those who had stormed the Capitol. The music was loud — mostly stuff from a Malian musician named Idrissa Soumaoro — and I had to ask the hammer to repeat himself. Barely suppressing a roll of his eyes, he leaned over and shouted in my ear.
“A submarine captain — my captain — was shot by a gun that was fired on another submarine.”
“Well,” I said, draining my beer and flagging Sandy down so I could pay the tab. “You probably shouldn’t have left the windows open, then, should you?”
My name was Rocco Jones, and I lived for impossible murders, these Rubik Cubes of incredulity. Anyone could live the boring life — they did, and do, every day — but that wasn’t the life for me. (Yo ho ho.) My daughter was looking at TikTok one day and called what I had ‘Zoochosis.’ Which, what a word. I don’t know if that was the word for me, I don’t know if that’s what I feel like I have, but I’m glad there was a rough draft of something out there for what I believed I felt. People who lived those boring lives listened to scanners, asked for body cam footage, and asked for paperwork from us all the time because this was the thing they were looking for, longing…