The Long Fall

by Daniel Quentin Steele

“You have the soul of a philosopher my friend,” I told the former prize fighter, now bar owner, whom I’d declined to prosecute nearly a decade before when a loud mouth thug made the mistake of swinging on a man who had put two boxers in the hospital and one man in the ground during his pro career.

  We were sitting there chewing the fat when Jessica walked over. She was still in her office garb but she’d let her long blonde hair down to hang free around her shoulders. She looked younger.

  She ordered a Jack Daniels straight which I thought showed character on her part while O’Brien looked on approvingly. We drank and looked at each other without words. There were tears in her eyes. I’d never seen her this way, and I’d seen her on and off for more than 10 years.

  “Come on, Jess, what is your sad story? You know mine.”

  “It’s just love, Mr. – Bill. Why does love always have to break your heart?”

  “Hell, I’m the last person in the world you ought to be asking that.”

  She shook her head and said, “You were married for 17 years. You have two kids. I’m 44. I’ve never been married. I have no children. I never will. I’ve had men I cared for over the years, but nobody I ever loved the way you love your wife. And I never will Even if you lose your wife and kids, you’ve had a life. I never have.”

  I tried to think of something encouraging to say, but considering her words and my own thoughts the idea of slitting my waists or a bullet to the brain was beginning to seem downright appealing.

  “Come on, Jessica. You are a very young 44. And I’ve never really gone out of my way to tell you this, but you’re a beautiful woman. You could still find somebody.”

  She finished her drink and the tears started to flow for real.

  “No, Mr. – Bill. There’s only one man who’s ever loved me and that I loved. He asked me to marry him and I turned him down. Now he’s gone and he’s never coming back. And I don’t blame him.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s Carl – Carl Cameron. He’s a reporter for the Times-Union.

  “I know who Carl is. You and Carl – an item?”

  “For nearly a year. We met last June when he was doing a story on that Mayoral corruption case we were handling. He’s – he’s.”

  Then the tears really started.

  “He asked you to marry him. I got that much. And you turned him down? Why?”

  She told me and I just looked at her dumbfounded.

  “That’s why you didn’t marry him?”

  “I couldn’t. I know it sounds crazy to you, but …I couldn’t. I – we – we’d been…intimate. I told him I’d be his for the rest of my life, but I just couldn’t marry him.”

  “So you offered no strings sex and he dumped you because you wouldn’t marry him/”

  She nodded and I shook my head, trying to fight back a smile.

  “I didn’t know there were two people like that left in the world. Seriously, I understand him. He wants the ring and the picket fence and the whole thing. You’re both the age when guys started wanting that. But there’s got to be a way – a compromise- that you could both live with.”

  She just shook her head and cried harder.

  “I can’t, and I don’t want to live without him. What am I going to do?”

  She had moved her chair next to mine and she was in my arms and wetting my shirt.

  "I’m not the smartest guy in the world, but you know what you have to do. At least there's something you can do to keep him. I’ve lost the only woman I ever loved, and there’s nothing I can do.”

  She raised her tear streaked face and kissed me before I could move away from her. Her lips were soft. I had never even thought of kissing her, but she fit well into my arms.

  “I’m never going to have the man I love and your wife has found somebody else. Could we go to your place?”

  “And-“

  “I don’t want to be alone tonight, Bill. I think I’d kill myself if I had to sleep in my bed alone tonight. No strings, no obligations. Just stay with me. Please.”

  I seriously thought about it for a moment. Even if my dick refused to do anything, at least there would be a warm female body next to me. I didn’t know if I could stand another night alone thinking about Debbie and everything I’d lost – or that she had stolen from me.

  Then I shook my head and gently pried her off me.

  “No, it’s a tempting offer…God you have no idea how tempting. But you know why you want to go to bed with me.”

  “Because I’ve always admired you, Bill. You’re honest and decent and you fight for what you believe in and you’re a good man. I’d rather go to bed with you than almost anyone I know.”

  “Except for one guy, and you’re afraid to say yes to him. Come on, Jess, you don’t have to be a shrink to see what you’re doing. You’re afraid to take the plunge with Carl, so you go to bed with me and you can feel guilty and slutty and tell yourself it would never work and so you never have to try to make it work with him. I become your excuse for living alone the rest of your life. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

  She just stared at me for a minute, then wiped her face free of tears.

  “So you’re not going to take me to bed.”

  “No, I’m going to stay here and get drunk.”

  She got up and started to walk away.

  “You ought to tell him yes. If you really love him, don’t throw him away. There’s too much of that going around.”

  She didn’t even turn around.

  “I can’t.”

  I watched her walk out of O’Brien’s and thought that it should have been some small comfort to think there was somebody whose life was even more screwed up than mine, but it didn’t make me feel any better.

  Four Bloody Marys didn’t make me feel any better, but I didn’t feel much of anything by the time I finished my fifth. I was still conscious so I’d need a sixth.

  I was prepared to remind O’Brien that he owed me big time to get number six when I saw a cop coming and then sitting down beside me. He was about six feet tall, a grizzled silvery brunette with an old fashioned handlebar mustache.

  He held his hand out to me and I took it automatically.

  “Bob Hastings, Mr. Maitland. Sergeant Hastings. I’m the beat sergeant for this zone. How you doing?”

  “Fine. Working on getting unconscious. Mind giving me a lift home or getting me a cab when I collapse?”

  “Sorry, Mr. Maitland. O’Brien called me when he thought you might get to be a handful. We need to talk.”

  “'Bout what?”

  “There won’t be any more police babysitters taking you home and tucking you in. I know you’re a big time prosecutor and the Sheriff has passed the word down to treat you with kid gloves, but you need to get your shit together.”

  “I don’t-‘

  “My men have got better things to do with their time than take a guy whose wife ran around on him home every time he wants to crawl into a bottle to hide from the truth about his life.”

  I laughed.

  “Well, don’t beat around the bush, Sergeant. Let me have it straight. Where’d you get your mari- marit – counseling license?”

  He pulled his Glock pistol out of its holster and laid it on the table between us.

  “No need to get violent, Sergeant.”

  “Just making a point. I know where you are, Mr. Maitland. You’re living in some temporary apartment ‘cause your wife threw you out. You’re alone, for the first time in a long time. And you can’t stand the silence there. You can’t stand sleeping in a lonely bed. So you are going to keep going out and drinking yourself blind drunk to hide from the pain of facing the fact that you are alone now.

  “I was there. I screwed around on my wife until she threw me out six months ago. I almost got lost in a bottle. But that (pointing to the Glock) saved me.”

  “Don’t follow.”

  “I knew if I kept drinking I’d miss work, I’d make mistakes, I’d get myself thrown off
the force. And if that happened, I’d go home and stick that Glock in my mouth and blow my brains out.”

  He stared at me.

  “I know who you are. You’re me. The only thing I really love is what I do. Being a cop. I can keep going as long as I have that. If I lose that, I wouldn’t want to live. You’re a prosecutor. It’s not just what you do. It’s who you are. You don’t get out of the bottle and you’ll be dead in three months.”

  He put the Glock back in its holster and stood up.

  “I haven’t run into you, but guys I trust tell me you’re a good guy. We don’t have enough of them. Find something to do at night. Join a gym, volunteer at a hospital, become a Big Brother, become a Safe Streets volunteer. Just stay out of the bars. Goodnight.”

  And he walked away. O’Brien came over and told me, “Your cab is waiting for you outside, Mr. M. I was you, I’d listen to Sergeant Hastings. Your life may seem pretty shitty right now, but give yourself a chance. Give yourself some time.”

  I woke up alone. I rolled over and picked up my cell and dialed a familiar number. If Debbie had answered I was going to hang up. Despite the fact that we had caller ID, Bill Jr. answered.

  “Hi.”

  “Hey. I wake you?”

  “Naw, I’m getting ready to go out. Jesse Hillman from school invited me to go with him and his dad on a camping trip to Salt Springs. Going to go down into the boils with masks and snorkels.”

  “That sounds like fun. I don’t think you remember, but I took you down there when you were about four – five years old. You loved it.”

  “I – don’t really remember that. But yeah, I think it will be fun.”

  “When you leaving?”

  “In about an hour. Be back Sunday night.”

  “Oh, have a good time. Is your sister there?”

  “No. She went on a two day trip to Atlanta with Melody Barnes and her mom and dad.”

  I just held the phone to my ear and listened to him breathing. I wondered why he didn’t remember our trip to Salt Springs. It was clear as a bell to me.

  “You want to talk to mom? I heard her and D-“

  “Doug is there?”

  “I – uh- mom doesn’t want us talking to you about her and Doug.”

  I knew I shouldn’t but I couldn’t help asking, “He’s staying there overnight now?”

  “I can’t….just…sometimes.”

  “It’s okay, BJ. You never said anything to me. Don’t even tell her I called. Just have a good time. And I…”

  “I know.” And he hung up.

  CHAPTER 3: 2nd THOUGHTS AND FIRST STEPS

  My name is Bill Maitland. I’m an Assistant State Attorney in Jacksonville, Florida. Until about six weeks ago I thought I had a nearly perfect marriage to the former Debbie Bascomb, a big breasted and gorgeous blonde business professor at the University of North Florida. We had two teenagers, I had a job I loved, and life was good. Until Debbie hit me with four words that shattered my life, I accused her of something she was physically not guilty of, and our marriage started to dissolve.

  Three weeks ago after throwing me out of our house she told me she didn’t love me and was getting a divorce. I’ve managed to keep my head above water at work, but my personal life has taken a plunge into the toilet. I am a 41-year-old man who’s supposed to be married. I like being married. I’m old for my age, flabby and out of shape and balding and just not equipped for the bar scene. Not to mention that I hadn’t liked it all that much when I could compete.

  It’s another lonely weekend and I’ve just climbed out of a bottle and I managed to catch my 14-year old son Bill Junior at home and had one of the best conversations I’ve had with him for a long time. I wish I’d taped it to listen to again. Along the way, he let slip that Debbie’s young stud professor, Doug Baker, has started spending nights over at OUR house. I am NOT happy!

  I rolled out of bed, made myself a cup of coffee that just didn’t taste the same although I’d bought the exact same blend we’d used for 10 years. And thought about Doug Baker’s chiseled abs glistening with sweat he lay on top of Debbie’s gorgeous body and rammed her with what was undoubtedly a big cock. Naturally, he’d have a big cock. Bastard couldn’t be undersized, could he? Home wreckers never had small dicks. Some rule of nature, I guess.

  I couldn’t go assault him again, even if he was in my house. Debbie still had that protective court order keeping me away from her and it without a cop babysitter. I could waylay him somewhere else, but what was the point. At some point even being who I was wouldn’t protect me from arrest and then I really would lose my job and the only reason I still had to get up in the morning.

  And even if I could do it without fear of arrest, I knew he’d kick the shit out of me. Unless I hit him from behind. We had fought -if you could call it that – at a UNF function that Debbie had sneaked out to play his girlfriend while she was still married to me. A fight. Hell, it was a slaughter. I’m not a fighter. She had said something about him being a boxer and he’d handled me like a pro would handle a 9th grader.

  Why the hell would a grown man be fist fighting anyway. You fight when you’re in high school or college and your girl or someone who you want to be your girl is watching. When you get married and you’re a white collar professional, you’re not supposed to have to fist fight for your wife’s love and respect.

  But it had made a difference. I saw it in her eyes the night I’d surprised her with him. She had contempt for me. In her eyes I was just a flabby, foolish little man who was going to be embarrassed by her stud boyfriend.

  She had been horrified, had screamed when I made him pay for a gesture of good will as he tried to help me up and I caught him in the balls and then in the face with the top of my head, then did my best to kick his face off with my shoe as he lay in front of me bleeding.

  But I saw it in her eyes. I had surprised her. I wasn’t supposed to be the guy standing and her stud the guy bleeding all over the floor. She had looked at me differently for just a fraction of a second and I realized she was looking at me as a man, not just a husband.

  If, as they say, every guy is just a grown up 13-year-old, I think every woman is just a grown up 15-year-old. They may say it doesn’t’ matter, but they get hot when a man fights for them, and wins. It’s probably something in our genetic makeup. And she had completely eliminated me from the category of – male.

  Of course by that night it was too late, but for just a moment I’d had her respect because I’d come and fought for her. Even if she’d never admit it in a million years.

  It had felt good, I remembered. And even if I never had the opportunity to beat the crap out of him, even if they married or become permanent bed buddies, I wanted to know in my own mind that I could take him. It was childish and foolish and entirely unworthy of a 41-year-old professional, but I didn’t give a crap.

  I got to thinking and then I made a phone call. A Hispanic sounding voice answered the phone and I asked if Carlos Herrerra was there. I had to repeat the name a couple of times and finally I heard someone yell, “Papa, ven acqi, telefono.”

  A few moments later a husky old man’s voice said, “Si?”

  “Hello, Carlos. You got any time to talk to old friends?”

  There was a silence and then, “Billy, Billy, I thought you had died. Haven’t heard from you in a long time.”

  “You know what they say, too mean to die. Carlos, you still have that old gym of yours open?"

  “Of course. You find a good welterweight prospect for me? Has that boy of yours decided he wants to become a fighter?”

  “No, but are you open right now? Can I come by?”

  “You have to ask? It would be open even if it were closed, for you. Come, my friend.”

  I knew that if the old man was still alive, his door would always be open to me. He had promised me that nearly four years before and as far as I knew, he had always kept his promises.

  Juan Herrerra had been 27 when he made the mistake of asking a p
retty young blonde to dance with him at a Jax Beach nightclub on a Saturday night. Unfortunately she had caught the eye of Wilson LaMark. Wilson was a 24-year-old graduate student at Jacksonville University. He was more than a little drunk and he hadn’t taken kindly to the good looking Hispanic man trying to cut in on his intended playmate.

  When he’d made his feelings clear, Juan laid him out with one punch, having been tutored since he was a child by a doting father, Carlos Herrerra. Four of Wilson’s friends had taken offense to Juan’s actions and the fighting moved outside. Before it was over three of them were suffering broken noses, fractured cheekbones and a fourth a broken collarbone.

  Which is where it might have ended, except that Wilson happened to be the son of Henry LaMark, a Texas oilman worth at time about 400 million dollars. He had paid three men to bodyguard his son and after Juan had batted a couple of them around, one of them had managed to clock Juan from behind. Then they dragged him to the patio and one of them put a .44 magnum to Juan’s head and at a word from Wilson, blew his brains out.

  Unfortunately, they hadn’t counted on the presence of a newly installed monitoring camera positioned in just the right position to see Wilson nod and give the order to execute Juan.

  Of course, a man worth $400 million could afford to produce witnesses that Juan had started everything, that Wilson was not even around when he was shot, and that the bodyguard had fired in self-defense and fear after seeing Juan take out four feisty college students.

  But I moved quickly enough to secure the camera videotape and was able to play the bodyguards off against each other so that one of them turned State’s witness. Wilson went down for second degree murder only because it was obvious he was drunk, probably had a concussion from the shot that Juan had given him, and the bodyguards testified they were going to take Juan out whatever their client told them.

  His father, who had sacrificed about $20 million in deals to attend his son’s trial, didn’t take the verdict well. As a broken Carlos and I had been talking outside he had walked up to us with all the arrogance that being worth $400 million in Texas gives you and said under his breath so no one else could hear, “I hope you enjoyed that. My son will be out in three months, the Spic will be dead in six and you, you cocksucker, should kiss your wife and kids tonight because they’ll be gone within a year.”