The Shooting

by James Boice

  He looks hard at Lee. Lee seethes, humiliated, flashing back to his academy interview decades ago. Could the detective know about that?

  —That’s not what happened, Lee says firmly. —I told you what happened.

  —Tell me again.

  —Go ahead, Potter says. —Tell him again.

  Lee tells him again. He knows he’s trying to trip him up, catch him with discrepancies. But all his life he has imagined someone breaking into his house and what he would do, what he would say to the cops after. His father always taught him that the first part of responsible gun ownership is knowing the law. And criteria for justifiable homicide in the state of New York, in the event of a home invasion? Duty to retreat, reasonable fear of imminent death, rendering of aid. His father taught him to be a man who knows things and is prepared, a man who knows how to take care of himself and his family. He can tell the detective what happened as if by muscle memory, despite the chaos, the hurricane of worry for his son ripping through his head and heart.

  —Now just hold on, says the detective. —This guy just stood there and let you shoot him?

  Lee looks at Potter, who says, —It happened fast.

  —I’m not asking you, says the detective.

  Lee says, —It happened fast.

  —If it was me and I saw you had a gun, know what I would have done? Run. He saw the gun and ran, right? He ran for the door.

  —No. He kept coming.

  —Dude, look, it’s okay, it’s been a chaotic night. I’m not accusing you of lying to me, I’m just trying to help you remember accurately. I cannot accept him seeing your gun and then advancing on you. That’s not what people do. Okay? If he saw your gun, he would have done one of two things: pull his own gun or run away. So try again.

  Lee shrugs, helpless.

  —Need help? Want my theory? My theory is he walks into your house, for whatever reason. You don’t know who it is, it’s too dark. But he sees you, he sees your gun, or maybe you tell him you have it, he says holy shit and runs for the door. But when he gets there, he can’t get it open right away, he kind of struggles with it, probably because he’s scared or cracked out or drunk, right? We’ll know for sure when we get the toxicology results. You tell him to freeze right there, because you’re gonna call the cops. As is the right thing to do. But, ha, what’s he gonna do—wait? And these motherfuckers, man, these thugs, you know if he gets out of your house he’s never gonna get caught. Us cops, we try, but Christ, you know what we’re up against, you know if you let this kid leave we ain’t gonna find him. You know that. And he’ll go off and he’ll hurt someone else. No way, forget it, you can’t let him go, you’ve got to be a good citizen here. And that’s what you did. You did what you had to do. As a good guy. To keep society safe. We just want to clear that up for you, it will help you later. I got it right, right?

  John Potter puts his hand on Lee’s arm to make sure he says nothing.

  Detective says, —Lee. La Cuzio? The DA? I know him well. He’s my boss. If I give him what you’ve told me, he’s just gonna look at it and see the gun and say, Fuck this guy, and charge you with murder. But he’s very sympathetic to good guys being good citizens the way you were tonight. If he sees that, he’ll see things differently. Just confirm I got that small detail right just now so we can get it in there and it’ll make me feel much better that you’ll be taken care of later.

  John Potter says, —He’s told you what happened.

  —He’s given me a rehearsed story that makes no fucking sense.

  Potter says again, —He’s told you what happened.

  The detective sneers at them both, first at Potter, then at Lee. He laughs helplessly and says to Lee, —You’re so full of shit it’s coming out your ears. I know you were the aggressor. I know you didn’t have to kill that kid. I know as soon as you saw him you decided he was dead. What you are trying to pull is going to hurt you in the end. Your lawyer here is getting you into serious trouble. This horseshit story you’ve given me is going to get you charged with murder. Murder. Now is there anything else you want to tell me? Last chance.

  Lee says nothing.

  The detective shakes his head sadly and leaves without another word, forgetting his sport coat.

  But then another detective enters. A black guy. —Why you lying to us, dude? he says first off. —Why do I have witnesses saying they heard you screaming you were gonna kill the kid? Why do I have witnesses saying you’re some NRA white supremacist motherfucker, some ticking time bomb wandering the streets of New York ready to go Dirty Harry on whoever looks at you wrong? You wanted to kill that kid, didn’t you? You think you’re a cop. You think you can enforce law and order, right? You hoped that kid would come through your door. You smoked him right off the bat, didn’t you? You didn’t check to see who it was first. You went out into your living room with guns blazing. That’s what my witnesses say.

  —What witnesses? says John Potter. He says to Lee, —He doesn’t have witnesses.

  The detective says, —Tell me the truth right now, bro, or the hammer’s gonna drop on you. You’re looking at life in prison. You ever been to Rikers? You gonna get fucked up. And I got buddies who are COs over there, they tell me it’s way too crowded, they got nowhere to put new motherfuckers, the only place to put them now is with the craziest, gnarliest, blackest-ass motherfuckers who they ain’t wanted to put with nobody else because these dudes got dysfunctions, man, they got disorders.

  John Potter says, —This is great stuff. Coercion. Intimidation. This on the record? I hope so, I can’t wait to read it aloud in court.

  —Fuck the record. Tell me the truth. This is your last chance.

  Lee says, —He said he had a gun and he was there to kill me. I retreated. I rendered aid.

  —He was sleepwalking. You know that? You killed a fifteen-year-old boy in his sleep. How that feel? Feel good? You hard motherfucker. The one through the face is probably the one that killed him. Got his brains all over the door. How that feel right now, to know that? Feel pride? You proud? Proud to kill your own neighbor who grew up right downstairs from you? Who all his life lived right downstairs and you didn’t even know who he was? I have a question for you, tough man: How many times it take for you to recognize a black person’s face?

  Lee is sick, knows from how dizzy it makes him that it is true.

  No wrongdoing, his father says. His fault. Not yours.

  It goes on like this for hours, the rest of the night and into the morning. Four more detectives separately try to break him. No one ever shows up with the clothes the first detective promised.

  The last detective throws up his hands and leaves the room, and cops in uniform come and tell Lee to stand up and turn around.

  —What’s going on? he says.

  —It’s okay, says Potter. —Just do what they say.

  —Where are they taking me?

  —I’ll be down there first thing, Potter says.

  —Are they taking me to jail? Y’all taking me to jail?

  One of the cops says as another cuffs him, —No, we’re taking you to breakfast. What do you feel like? Pancakes?

  They take Lee outside and put him on a bus. It is so confusing and horrible, everyone seeming to know what is next but him. As the bus pulls away he can see Potter and the black detective standing on the sidewalk outside the station comparing iPhones, side by side. Potter lightly taps the detective on the chest with the back of his hand and says something, and the detective leans back and laughs, hand on his belly. It is like they are friends. Like they have always been friends. The bus is filled with other prisoners, mostly black but some Hispanic. Lee cowers, makes no eye contact. Takes a seat next to a young Hispanic man, a kid really. He has dried snot and blood on his face. —Don’t sit next to me faggot, Snot and Blood says. Lee apologizes, stands to find another seat. Guard at the front of the bus screams at him to sit back down. Lee sits back down.

  —Said don’t sit here, faggot.

  —He told me to
sit here.

  —You can’t, mang.

  —But there ain’t no one else sitting here.

  —That’s right. Including you, bitch-ass faggot.

  Lee says nothing, stays where he is. Snot and Blood keeps staring at him.

  —Said fuck up out here, mang.

  Lee does not. Snot and Blood puts his face up against the side of Lee’s. Lee can feel his breath on his skin. He can smell it, hot and foul like he hasn’t brushed his teeth in months.

  —Fuck up out here. Now. You wanna get stabbed? Punk-ass faggot bitch. He spits on him.

  Lee is trembling, trying not to cry. He stands up. Guard yells at him. Driver looks at him in the rearview mirror and pumps the brakes, bus lurches, Lee tumbles, face lands in the seat, presses against the vinyl fouled with decades of New York City criminal ass and sweat and piss. All the prisoners are laughing at him. —Bwa ha ha ha ha! The guard is screaming at him to get up off the floor, —Why you on the floor? Sit down, inmate, or I’ll break your head. Lee pushes himself up without the use of his hands, which are cuffed behind his back. He tumbles sideways onto the bench, driver pumps the brakes again, Lee rolls facedown into Snot and Blood’s lap, Snot and Blood says, —The fuck? and thrusts his pelvis violently to get him off and spits on him again and keeps spitting at him even when he has gotten off. Everyone laughing, laughing. Lee sits upright.

  —Fuck up off me before I kill you, says Snot and Blood.

  —I’m sorry, he tells Snot and Blood.

  —Fuck you.

  —Please, he begs the guard, —please let me change seats.

  —Fuck you, says the guard.

  —I told you not to sit here and yet you still sitting here, says Snot and Blood.

  —Come on, dude, Lee says, voice breaking, —you understand my predicament here, what am I supposed to do?

  They all love that: —Bwa ha ha ha ha ha! Dude! Duuuuuuuuude!

  Snot and Blood spits on Lee one more time, then loses interest, falls silent and sullen.

  Outside the windows covered in steel mesh the city goes about its business with no regard for what has happened. The city absorbs everything. It is omnivorous. Its capacity is infinite. It is lonely to see people going into coffee shops right now, going in and out of subway stations. Wearing work clothes. Talking on the phone. Chuckling as they walk alongside each other in conversation. Walking children to school. Loneliness has not been loneliness until now.

  The bus enters an underground garage and one at a time the prisoners are ordered off the bus. They are brought into an old labyrinth of green fluorescent-lit cages and low-ceilinged halls that seems to twist miles and miles beneath Manhattan toward the center of the earth. He is disoriented and covered in Snot and Blood’s spit. Correctional officers tell him, Shut up. Stand here. Walk there. Bend. Stand. Turn. Walk. Shut up. He is forced to undress in a roomful of strangers. He is raped by a guard’s fingers while several others watch, including women, all peering up with flashlights into his stretched rectum as they chat idly about car stereos. Something tears, he feels hot liquid. —Ooooh, a bleeder! They stick paper towels in his ass, tell him to pull his pants up and stand here, walk there, turn, sit, stand, shut up, don’t look at me. A doctor looks at him and says he’s fine. Humiliated and in great pain, he moves along with the rest of them like bovine in his prison garb—it smells like industrial disinfectant and old semen—and ill-fitting laceless sneakers into a large room, where he finds a bench far away from everyone in the corner where he can sit with his back to the wall. What now? What will happen? When can he post bail and go home and be with his son? When will the system work?

  It is extremely cold. The walls are cinder block coated in cheap white paint, with graffiti all over it. The lights are flickering greenish fluorescent tubes behind protective steel cages. The other prisoners slump depressed against the walls with heads down on their knees or pace and slobber and shout gibberish over and over. They fight, threaten each other. They are on all kinds of drugs, in various stages of intoxication and detoxification. Prisoners are screaming, fighting, writhing around crying, slumped on the floor and maybe dead. There is a large light brown coil of human shit in the corner, it stinks, it makes you gag. The COs laugh at it, leave it there. Stay aware, Lee. That is the thing to do right now. Stay aware and try to be invisible and wait to be called and released.

  —Hey yo, a black prisoner calls to Lee from his own seat on the other side of the room. Burns all over his neck. —That’s mah seat you sitting in.

  Lee tries ignoring him.

  —Look at me, motherfucker.

  Lee looks at Burns. He grins, teeth all fucked up. —That’s mah seat.

  —But you already have a seat.

  Burns stops grinning. —What you say? What you say to me, motherfucker? He stands up, he must be seven feet tall and three hundred pounds. He comes toward Lee. —What you sitting in mah seat saying to me?

  —Nothing, Lee says.

  Three other big black giants flank Burns now, materializing from who knows where to back him up on the matter. —That’s right, they say, —that’s his seat.

  —Mah seat, says Burns.

  —His seat, say the giants.

  —Fine, Lee says, —you want the daggone seat? Take it.

  He stands up, paper towels in his pants crinkling as he gives up the seat, furious and terrified and completely powerless. The only other place left to sit is near the shit, and he’s not about to sit there. So he has to stand, and the only place to stand is in the middle of the room where he is vulnerable to attack from all sides. Now everyone seems to be eyeballing him, talking to each other about him. Plotting. Do they know what he has done? He hears his father say, What have you done? You’ve done nothing. What will he do if attacked? What defense does he have? He has never been in a fight before. He likes to think he knows what he would do—he has posted long, detailed instructions in online forums about how to fight, where to attack a gang of street thugs to most efficiently neutralize them when they jump you in a parking lot, close-encounter hand-to-hand tactics to use when someone breaks into your bedroom through the window and you don’t have time to reach for your gun, and he has even demonstrated these methods at self-defense seminars, but inside he is afraid that if someone were to actually strike his face with a fist he will just immediately lose consciousness the way chickens do when you hold them down on their back. Hell you will, his father says. But he will, he will panic. And fuck up. Like last night. You didn’t. Yes, he finally had his chance to be who he believes he is and he panicked, he fucked up.

  Go easy on yourself, you’re always so dang hard on yourself. You did what you had to do to protect your son.

  At his feet space opens enough for him to sit on the floor and he does.

  —Yo, says a massive thug with braids and tattoos, standing over Lee now. —They busted the Pillsbury Doughboy! What they get you for, Pills? Messing with kids, right? I always suspected that about you.

  Lee has learned his lesson now; he avoids eye contact, says nothing. But he can see enough to know that this one is better groomed than the others. He hears his father say, You know what that means, don’t you? Lee does. Kingpin. A high-ranking gangsta who deals in weight and has soldiers do his enforcing and street-level dealing.

  —Said what up, Pills?

  Plans to frame you for something, sell you contraband, trick you somehow into inescapable debt. You know what guys like this are like, no values, always scheming and manipulating and exploiting. You know.

  —Hello? says Kingpin, snapping his fingers in front of Lee’s face.

  Lee peers around for a CO, there are none to be seen. Stay sharp—Kingpin has paid them to look the other way for a few moments while he does God know what to you.

  He leans in close to Lee. —You know they saying you kill brown-hair girls. Young girls with brown hair. That true?

  Despite himself, Lee scoffs, insulted. —Hell no.

  —What about shooting up your office. They sayi
ng that too.

  Lee says nothing. Wait him out, maybe he’ll go away.

  —What about going vigilante on a kid? That one true? Kingpin reads Lee’s silence and nods and says, —Thought so. How it feel? Feel good?

  Lee says nothing.

  —What’s your name?

  —Leave me alone.

  —Your name’s Leave Me Alone? Your parents antisocial or something? Well, hi, Leave Me Alone, my name’s Joseph. Plain old Joseph. My parents are boring, I guess.

  Joseph holds out his hand. Lee lets it hang. Joseph chuckles but seems to file the slight away for later. —What’s the matter? Don’t want to talk to me? Don’t like me? All right, that’s cool. Just don’t shoot. He puts his hands up and backs away, laughing but without smiling, and with deep, deep anger in his eyes. He wanders off across the room and Lee notices how no one talks to Joseph, everyone stays away.

  Hour after hour passes. It is like a DMV in hell, one where everyone wants to kill you. Now and again inmates get called out to meet with lawyers or face the judge, but Lee is never called. Forgot about you. They made an oversight, you mean nothing to them, and now you will die in here. At one point, despite his efforts not to, he drifts off to sleep. Last thing he hears is the kid next to him hissing at another, —Gonna kill you, gonna kill you.