2 Grand Delusion

by Matt Witten

  A little while later Lia called a vote. Several politicos I hadn't noticed before, because they were blocked from my view in the front row, stood up and started counting hands. I recognized four of them: the commissioner of public works, two city councilmen, and last but not least, the confirmed sleazoid who's the mayor of Saratoga. The hall was so packed that tallying the exact totals was laborious, but when all was said and done, the SERC plan won 182 to 133. With the councilmen nodding in agreement by his side, the mayor announced that he and the council would vote tomorrow to approve the plan.

  Yes, by gum, despite all its flaws, we still live in the greatest country in the world. This S.O.S. meeting was an inspiring demonstration of good old-fashioned American democracy at its finest. It took the stench of that zoning hearing out of my head, with its pompous bureaucrats, amoral lawyers, and crooked violent cops.

  Lia Kalmus, with her stunning speech, had just replaced Harold Stassen as my favorite all-time public statesman. (H.S., for the uninitiated, was a one-time Minnesota governor who spent the last forty years of his life running increasingly deranged campaigns for the presidency.) I was feeling so patriotic that when I got home I watched the last inning of the baseball playoffs on television.

  Even better, the Yankees got whupped. Another triumph of good over evil.

  I brushed my teeth and went to bed. Andrea shifted in her sleep and spooned me. Subconsciously at least, she had forgiven me for my outburst at City Hall. Snuggling next to her, I closed my eyes and fell sound asleep.

  But not for long.

  I was woken up from dreamland by a car door slamming—or maybe two car doors slamming, my head was still fuzzy. Those damn neighbors again, I thought. Then the night was shattered by an ear-piercing shriek. Pierced my ears, anyway. Andrea and the kids were amazingly still asleep.

  It was past midnight. I swung out of bed and reached for the phone. But then a car backfired outside, followed by another shriek, even more desperate than the first. I couldn't tell if these shrieks came from a woman, child, or even a man for that matter; they were ageless, genderless shouts of pure pain and terror. To heck with calling the cops—they'd take half an hour to get here. An attack of middle-age macho came over me, and I put on my slippers and threw a robe over my pajamas, preparing to go forth and do battle.

  But macho man though I was, I didn't go forth to battle just yet. First I stopped off in the john, following my number one rule for success and happiness in life: Never begin an important project with a full bladder.

  Then I went outside.

  Unfortunately, the fifteen seconds it took me to find relief made all the difference. Because by the time I got outside, the night was eerily silent again. Nothing but distant car sounds and a far-off street lamp buzzing.

  But then I heard that agonized, low-pitched moan.

  And that's when I found Pop Doyle bleeding to death behind 107 Elm.

  And that's when I got arrested for murder.

  6

  What happened was, I stood there staring down at Pop's body, pulling my robe around me and shivering, when suddenly—

  "Put your hands up!" someone behind me yelled. I turned. It was Dave Mackerel, the cop from across the street. He was wearing sweat pants and a windbreaker. How'd he get here so fast? "Dave—"

  "Hands up!" He had a gun pointed straight at my chest. His voice was shrill and panicky.

  I moved forward into the light where he could see me. "Hey, it's me, Jacob—"

  "I know it's you. Don't move!" He lifted his gun and pointed it at my head.

  I stopped in my tracks and put my hands up. "Look, this is crazy. I didn't shoot Pop—"

  "What?" He waved his gun at the dead man lying there in the darkness. "That's Pop?"

  "Yeah, he's dead," I said helpfully. "Someone shot him in the neck."

  Dave stared at me. Even though he was still holding the gun high, his shoulders drooped and he looked sad. "Jesus, Jake, why'd you have to go and kill him?"

  "I didn't kill him!" I yelled hysterically, and was going to yell some more when Dave stopped me with "Get on the ground!" I just stood there. "Lie down!" he shouted, waving his weapon.

  I lay down.

  "Arms to the side," Dave told me.

  I put them to the side. "Dave, don't be an idiot. You know me. I trim your hedges. We're friends."

  "Where's the gun?"

  "How can you possibly think I did it?!"

  "Oh, come on, Jake!" he sputtered furiously. "I heard all about your stupid little episode at City Hall tonight!"

  "But that had nothing to do with this!"

  "Where's the gun?"

  "I just came outside to—"

  "Where's your fucking gun?"

  I sighed, exasperated. "There's a gun right next to his body. But I always keep a second gun in my special custom-made ankle holster."

  "Don't make jokes." He stood over me and patted me down, being pretty darn thorough about it, even checking for that ankle holster.

  "Oh, and before I forget," I said, "I have a World War Two hand grenade sewn into a secret pocket of my bathrobe—"

  "I told you, don't make jokes!" And damned if he didn't slap me on the back of my head.

  I wanted to jump up and punch him out. But it wasn't a hard slap, and it wasn't even out of anger really, more out of frustration, trying to knock some sense into me. So I just smiled and said, "Thanks, I needed that."

  Dave shook his head. "Another joke, huh? Well, here's a joke for you: Anything you say can be used against you, you have the right to a lawyer, and all that other crap you've seen on TV. Now lay right there and don't move a single damn muscle because I'll be covering you the whole time."

  I was lying on my belly with my robe hanging open. How did I get into this mess? The ground was cold and damp, and sharp pebbles dug into the side of my face. Dave took a cell phone from his jacket pocket, started dialing a number—

  And that's when I saw it: a shadowy flicker of movement coming from the other side of 107 Elm.

  "Dave," I said urgently.

  But he was talking into the phone, and ignored me. Meanwhile the shadow turned into a person, crouching low and running at full tilt away from 107 and down the street.

  "Dave, look!"

  "What's your problem?" he asked irritably.

  I paused. Then finally I said, "Nothing."

  Because at the last moment, I'd recognized that fleeing figure.

  It was little snot-nosed Tony.

  What was he doing here? Did my nine-year-old pal kill Pop?

  "There's been a homicide at 107 Elm," Dave was saying into the phone. "It's Pop—Pop Doyle. I have the suspect right here. I need immediate backup."

  And then Andrea screamed.

  Neither of us had noticed her. She must have come out the front door, and now she appeared out of the darkness about three yards away from me. "My God!" she said, her voice quavering.

  "Back up, Andrea," Dave broke in.

  "Jacob—"

  "Back up—"

  "Did you kill Pop?" Andrea asked frantically.

  I tried to laugh. It sounded hollow. "No, of course I didn't kill him."

  She stared deep into my eyes, and I stared back. But I couldn't tell if she believed me or not.

  And it looked like she couldn't tell, either.

  Sirens blared. Cop cars stormed up. Two large men handcuffed me behind my back without saying much, just a brief snarl here and there. The neighbors all came out to watch, including Dale and Zapper, the drug dealers next door. They stood on their front porch together and observed me with folded arms and detached, faintly ironic expressions. Was their irony really a mask for something else?

  Lorenzo, the old guy from across the way, shuffled out to the street and waved at me. I couldn't wave because of the handcuffs, so I nodded weakly back. My other neighbors stood on their porches and avoided my eyes. I could see they felt guilty about enjoying themselves, but they were anyway. This was almost as much fun as watching so
meone's house burn down. Someone else's house, that is.

  I was shoved into the backseat of a cop car that stank heavily of cigars. A middle-aged cop with a busted nose leaned against the car as he watched over me. There was hate in his eyes.

  Feeling claustrophobic, I awkwardly tried opening a door with my cuffed hands just to get some air, but the car was locked from the outside. Busted Nose unlocked it for me. Before I could thank him, though, he slammed me in the gut with his nightstick. "Siddown, you fucking cop killer," he growled as I sat there crumpled over, with the wind knocked out of me. Then he slammed the door shut.

  Meanwhile Babe Ruth and Gretzky came out onto our front steps, bewildered. Andrea intercepted them before they could see my handcuffs, thank God, and shepherded them back inside. Before she went in, though, she shouted something to me. I couldn't hear her through the closed car windows, but it looked like she was shouting, "I love you!"

  At least, I hoped that's what she was shouting.

  More vehicles drove up, police cars and other cars too, filling the block. The cops put up yellow crime scene tape, flashbulbs started going off, and men in suits stooped down over Pop's corpse. Through an opening in the curtains of my sons' room, I saw Andrea leaning over their beds and tucking them in. She gave them a big, desperate hug.

  I should tell these damn cops about Tony. Give them another suspect, take the heat off me. Maybe then they'll let me out of this lousy, smelly cop car.

  But I couldn't bring myself to blow the whistle on the kid. Did Tony really kill Pop? But why would he...?

  My mind raced. Those horrific shrieks I'd heard—maybe they were Tony's. Maybe Pop was beating up Tony big time tonight, as revenge for the kid karate kicking him to the floor at City Hall.

  And then . . .

  Then Tony grabbed Pop's gun and shot him in self-defense.

  It all fit perfectly.

  Or did it? What was Tony doing outside 107 Elm at one a.m. in the first place?

  I wasn't thinking all that clearly, I just knew I had to talk to Tony first, before the cops. After all, it was partly my fault he got into that big brouhaha with Pop at City Hall. I owed it to the kid to help him. If the killing was self-defense against police brutality, I couldn't just sit back and let the cops railroad him.

  I mean, I was the only person alive that Tony could count on. God knows his mother was about as useful as a dried rutabaga.

  My thoughts were interrupted when Busted Nose threw open the door and yanked me out of the car. An Asian woman photographer came up and clicked away at me. "Be sure to get my good side," I said, trying to impress them with my suave Cary Grant bravado. Then I happened to glance in the car's side-view mirror and realized I didn't have a good side. My nose was covered with blood.

  No wonder I'd looked like the murderer to Dave. For an insane moment I wondered if I really did kill Pop. Then I remembered Pop's bloody arm jerking at my nose. I shuddered.

  A cop in a wrinkled uniform who looked like he'd just gotten out of bed swabbed my nose with three Q-tips and put them in a plastic bag. Then Busted Nose—from his conversations with the other cops, I learned his regular name was Manny Cole—shoved me back into the car and got in the driver's seat. My erstwhile buddy Dave got in beside him. "Where are we going?" I asked.

  "Where do ya think, scumbag?" Cole answered. "Jail. Your new home."

  Evidently Cole had attended the same charm school as Pop. I waited for Dave to tell him to lighten up, but he didn't. "Dave," I said, "you're gonna feel awfully silly when you find out I didn't do it."

  Dave sighed, tired. "Tell it to the judge, Jake."

  "Let's make a bet. If I'm innocent, you have to trim my hedges and snowblow my driveway for a full year."

  Dave gave me a ghost of a smile. "And what if you're guilty? You gonna trim my hedges?"

  "Fat chance," Cole snorted. "They don't let faggot cop killers out on work release until they've done about thirty years first. 'Course," he added cheerfully, "the judge might just say the hell with it and put you in the chair. Killing a cop, that's a capital offense."

  "Depends which cop gets killed," I said. I was scared shitless, but refused to act that way in front of this jerk. "When the cop is a zero-IQ turdball like you, then killing him is barely a misdemeanor. Sometimes they hold public parades down Broadway to celebrate."

  "Is that what you were thinking when you killed Pop?" Cole asked.

  "Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking when I killed Pop," I said, then pretended to get all flustered. "Oh gosh, you just tricked a confession out of me! How clever you are, Mr. Policeman, sir!"

  Childish, I know, but it did shut him up. No one said another word until we got to the Saratoga police station, which is located in the City Hall basement. Dave got out of one side of the car while Cole got out the other, so I'll give Dave the benefit of the doubt. From where he stood, maybe Dave couldn't see what Cole did to me while he took me out of the backseat.

  Cole jabbed my eyeballs, hard, with his thumb and forefinger.

  That eyeball-gouging trick is one of the self-defense techniques they teach women, and believe me, ladies, it works. Instant killer migraine. My eyes shut tight, and I couldn't get them to open back up. All I could see were tight black circles of pain. Walking blindly, my hands cuffed behind me, I tripped on the curb and fell face first on the concrete.

  Cole pulled me up roughly. Then he and Dave guided me by the elbows as I stumbled through a door and down some stairs. I wanted to scream, but hated to give Cole the satisfaction. I heard him say gruffly, "Here he is," and then a new voice said, "Good," followed by, "What's wrong with your eyes?"

  That had to be me he was talking to. "This pathetic excuse for a human being stabbed them with his fingers. I want to press charges," I said.

  Someone chuckled. I was so mad a surge of adrenaline ran through me, and my eyes started clearing up a little. I made out some blurry faces hovering near me, and a barred window. Meanwhile a man came up behind me and unlocked my cuffs, but before I got a chance to massage my aching wrists, I was cuffed to a metal ring on the wall.

  "Okay, pal, what's your name?"

  I didn't answer.

  "I said what's your name?" the voice snapped threateningly.

  "Sorry. You said 'pal,' so I figured you weren't talking to me." My eyes cleared some more, and I was able to make out two cops standing close to me, Cole and a young guy with a crewcut. A redhead in his forties with bad acne scars leaned against the wall, giving me the evil eye. Dave was gone.

  Young Crewcut was the guy who'd been firing questions at me. Now he balled his hand into a fist, and I braced for a punch. But none came. "What's your name?" he hissed.

  Suddenly I flashed back to a vicious game I used to play as a kid, during my brief career as a junior high school hooligan. We called the game "Gestapo." A couple of friends and I would back some nerdy seventh grader up against a wall in a deserted corner of the school and ask him, "What's your name?" And when he told us, we'd shout, "You lie!" and slap his face.

  Maybe now God, or Someone similar, was extracting karmic revenge on me. "My name's Jacob Burns, pal," I said. "What's yours?"

  Still no punch. No slap on my face either. By now I could see the whole room, if a little hazily, and I noticed a video camera above Young Crewcut's head. As he wrote down my name, address, and date and place of birth (Why do so many forms ask what state you were born in? What difference does it make if you were born in Rhode Island or Delaware?), it dawned on me that this was the world-famous booking area where the night manager of Roosters Pub got roughed up by a Saratoga police sergeant. I say "world-famous" because a videotape of the event made it onto a couple of national shows like Nightline and 60 Minutes.

  That video camera on the wall explained why I wasn't getting punched. At least, not here anyway. I could only hope the rest of the police station was videotaped, too.

  "Take off your belt," Young Crewcut ordered me.

  "Oh, come on—"

 
"Take it off."

  Since I was cuffed to the wall, I only had one hand free. I used it to remove the belt from my robe. Then I looked down at myself.

  I was wearing ancient blue and yellow striped pajamas that some barely remembered girlfriend had bought me half a lifetime ago. The middle button on my fly was missing, so with my beltless robe hanging open I had to adjust my pajama bottoms just right, or my johnson would come flopping out into full view.

  If I'd known I was going to jail, I would have worn spiffier PJs.

  Even worse, I was wearing slippers that my wife got me for a joke when I turned forty last year. They were purple fluffy jobs with the words "World's Greatest Lover" printed on them in bright orange.

  Cole and Young Crewcut were eyeing my slippers, too. "You can keep your footwear if you want," Young Crewcut said, deadpan.

  Cole busted out laughing for what felt like a full minute. The acne-scarred redhead, who'd been silently malevolent this whole time, laughed, too. Then he stepped in front of the videocamera and, hidden from the lens, spit at my face.

  Maybe the fun would have lasted longer, but a door opened and the lieutenant in charge of the investigation stepped into the room. My heart sank. Lieutenant Foxwell was the same lantern-jawed lieutenant that the Ninja Turtles and I had fought with earlier that night.

  He thrust that impressive jaw forward and gave me a hard stare. Then he unsnapped my cuffs, said, "This way," and pushed me through the door.

  I was fingerprinted, not just once but three times—for the city, the state, and the FBI. Well, heck, I'd always wanted to be famous. Then Foxwell wiped the blood off my nose with a wet paper towel and took my mug shot with a Polaroid Mini-Portrait camera. I was prisoner number 274013. I vowed that if I ever got out of this mess, I'd play the lottery with those numbers.

  I wanted to smile for my mug shot, just to be different. But Foxwell ordered me not to. I asked him why, without expecting an answer, but he gave me one. "Mug shots should look the way people usually look, and people don't usually smile. Especially douchebags who've been busted for killing cops."