Running

by Dave Milbrandt

  “I’m sorry, babe. I really am, but you’ve got to listen to me. I love you, I really do.”

  “I wish I could believe you.”

  He pointed the gun at her head. “Why would you say that?”

  “I’m sorry…” Tears began to stream down her cheeks.

  Terry hoped his intense glare would convince the other students in the class that today was not the day to play the hero.

  Terry returned his gaze to the front of the room and was thankful Jarret was still looking at Esther. “I know you’re sorry, but you’ve hurt me. You hurt me real bad. And now you’ve got to pay the price.”

  “Wh–what are you talking about?”

  Keeping his eyes on Jarret, Terry took a breath. This has to end before Esther or any one of my students gets hurt—or worse. Who knows when the police will get here? No matter what happens to me, I’ve got to stop this now. He slowly opened his lower desk drawer and reached inside.

  Focused solely on Esther, Jarret placed the gun against her temple. “You broke my heart. Now, I’m going to break yours.”

  “Put the gun down, Mr. Ross.”

  The boy’s head whipped toward the teacher and his eyes registered surprised when he saw Terry holding a Glock 17 of his own.

  “Like I said, put the gun down.” Terry tightened his grip.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Listen, my dad was in the Marines, and he took me to the gun range every weekend when I was a kid. I’m betting I am a better shot than you are. Now, let’s put the gun down before anyone gets hurt.”

  Jarret lowered his weapon from Esther’s head. The girl slumped into her seat. As the boy seemed to waver, Tony, one of the larger offensive linemen for the Warriors, started to get out of his seat. Terry saw the movement out of the corner of his eye.

  “Tony, please stay in your seat.”

  “Yeah, Tony, ’stay in your seat.’” The fear in Jarret’s voice was barely masked by false bravado.

  “Mr. Ross. Jarret. Nobody has to get hurt. I'm sure we can work this all out.”

  The gunman moved away from Esther and closer to Terry.

  Maybe he’s finally listening to reason.

  “Good. Just put the gun on the ground, and then everyone can walk away and no one gets hurt.”

  “But I’ve been hurt, and nothing you can say can make it better.”

  “Well, I might not be able to help you, but I’m sure someone can. Why don’t we wait for help to arrive?”

  Terry saw a student texting in the back and desperately hoped she was sending a message to the school’s anonymous text hotline. He didn’t want the campus security’s first sign of trouble to be gunshots from one of them.

  Jarret shook his head. “I’ve been in counseling for years and none of it’s helped. I’m broken and nobody can fix me. Nobody!”

  The moment Terry had feared arrived quicker than he would have imagined. Jarret raised the weapon, his finger on the trigger.

  Terry’s response was automatic: aim for center mass and fire. Two bullets entered the teen, who quickly crumpled to the floor. Some students cursed and others screamed, while the blood seeping out of Jarret’s chest wound transformed the dark-blue carpet to a macabre shade of eggplant.

  He placed his gun on his desk and called the front office for a campus security officer to come quickly. What happened next was predictable because it had happened eight years earlier. The campus went into lockdown. Principal Chavez, who had come to EVHS last year, was making the worst phone call of his life, a call that would prompt the nearest SWAT team to speed up the school’s front driveway within 10 minutes or so. Terry would be taken into custody, that was for sure. Whether he would spend any serious time in jail was another question.

  As he waited for law enforcement to arrive on the scene, he kept asking himself one question over and over.

  Did I do the right thing?

  BEEP!!! BEEP!!! BEEP!!!

  _____

  “And that’s how the dream ended?” Rachel asked Terry almost in a whisper. He had woken his wife up as soon as his eyes popped open.

  “Yep, that’s it.” He paused. “I’m guessing it’s just the stuff that happened on Friday mixed with that school shooting in Orange County last week.”

  “Are you sure you shouldn’t stay home?”

  “No, I’ll be OK. Besides, if I call in now, they will be scrambling to get period coverage all day long, and that’s unfair to Jessica at the front desk and every one that has to pick up the slack for me.”

  “Is it safe, you know, with what Jarret actually did last week?”

  He put his hand on her shoulder. “There’s nothing to worry about, I promise. Unlike in my dream, the discipline office suspended him for today and may ask for him to be transferred to Valle Vista for the remainder of the semester. Either way, we will have an officer from Emerald Valley PD at the front of the campus all week in the morning and at the end of the day just in case he tries something. They also might transfer him to Valle Vista to get him away from Esther.”

  “That sounds like a temporary solution to a long-term problem.”

  “I know it does, but you know how teenagers are. One day, their ex is the most important person in the world, the next day they’re flirting with someone new. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Norman promised to check in with me every day during 2nd period, and campus security is four digits away. But I refuse to let this control my life. I just can’t.” He looked at his clock. “I should have been in the shower five minutes ago. I’ll have to get something from the vending machine for breakfast. Unless someone does actually bring doughnuts.”

  “Why don’t you get a banana instead?”

  “That’s a great idea.” He scrambled out of bed and rushed to the master bathroom.

  “You were driving a green Bug, huh?”

  “It beats running around town in a car almost as old as my students.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll have enough money saved at the end of the school year for a Bug in whatever color you want.”

  “Perfect. Now, I’ve got to get going, or I’m going to be late for sure.”

  She shooed him away as he closed the door.

  10

  Wednesday, October 5

  Gabe O’Brien was having a very bad day.

  Sitting for almost an hour on the hard, black plastic chairs that lined the wall outside the school’s discipline office, the high school senior had replayed the incident from Mr. Gould’s AP Government class over in his head too many times to count. People had been on their best behavior the first few weeks, but it was an election year and he figured his classmates would start arguing with each other before too long.

  Chris Goodman was back to being his usual self, ranting about how the government was “hijacking” our freedoms every day. It wasn’t that Gabe disagreed with everything Chris said, it was his condescending tone and aggressive style that irritated him the most. He just doesn’t know when to stop, Gabe thought as he waited to be called into the office.

  Gabe heard the thunk that Mr. Rodrigues, Emerald Valley’s High’s dean of discipline, made when he placed the telephone receiver back on its base.

  “Gabe? Come on in and close the door.”

  As he entered the dean’s office, he noticed Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Jack Findlay seated to his right. Gabe closed the door and lowered himself into the remaining seat. With his back straight and hands folded, he angled his chair slightly so that he could see both Dean Rodrigues and the officer assigned to help patrol the campus.

  “Gabe, I have read your statement and the one Chris wrote. It seems you two had an argument that escalated into a fight. I’m sure you read the student handbook when you enrolled at Emerald Valley in August, but since you haven’t been in trouble before, I am reminding you that school policy dictates both people involved in a fight are automatically given a five-day suspension, no matter who threw the first punch. Is that clear?”

  Gabe looked di
rectly at Dean Rodrigues. “Yes, sir.”

  “What led up to the fight?”

  “Well, Chris was complaining about the government like he always does during discussion in Mr. Gould’s class. He was saying all cops are no better than the Gestapo during World War II. Then we started talking about the PATRIOT Act and whether tapping phones to investigate potential terror cells was constitutional or not. I wrote a paper on that in Mr. Delaney’s class a few weeks ago, so Chris knew the topic was important to me.”

  Gabe took a calming breath.

  “Go on.”

  “He decided to egg me on. He said that anyone who supported these searches was no better than the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 and that people who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq were basically just as guilty of murder as al Qaeda. He looked straight at me when he said that. Chris knows my Uncle Larry was in the Army and died in Afghanistan, and he said it anyway. I told him to leave it alone, but he kept going by saying my uncle was a killer just like Bin Laden. I stood up, he took a swing at me and I defended myself.”

  “Well, while you might see this whole situation as you defending yourself, that’s not how the rules work here. You should have tried to resolve the situation peacefully. Has Chris ever bothered you before?”

  “Actually, Chris usually tries to start something every day.”

  “Then why haven’t you said anything before now?”

  Gabe sighed. “I have said something twice, and nothing has been done to solve the problem.”

  The dean stopped short. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, in early September, I told Mr. Gould about the problem. He moved me over two seats, but then Chris just got Julia to switch seats with him. Mr. Gould made Chris move back, but then Chris started harassing me on the way to class.”

  Gabe shifted in his seat as he continued. “Hector, the campus supervisor, saw Chris bugging me and asked what was wrong. After I explained things, he suggested I talk to my counselor.

  “I asked Ms. O’Reilly about changing my schedule at the semester, but she said if I wanted to keep Spanish III with Mrs. Cardenas and stay in Mr. Delaney’s English class, I couldn’t switch out of third period Government. After that, I stopped trying to fix things and just tried to ignore Chris.”

  “Until today.”

  “Yeah, well…”

  Rodrigues leaned back in his chair as Findlay turned to the senior. “Gabriel, beyond what happens to you here at school, you’re in quite a bit of trouble legally. Mr. Rodrigues tells me you turned 18 last month. Is that right?”

  “Yes sir. September 15th.”

  “Well, since you are 18, and Chris’s dad has already threatened to press charges, you would be tried as an adult. And, according to some of the other students in the class, it looked like you were using some form of martial arts. Where they right?”

  Gabe nodded. “I earned my black belt in karate when I was 14.”

  “So, the district attorney could charge you with assault with a deadly weapon. You could get up to four years in county jail if the DA goes for the maximum sentence. Four years is a very long time, Gabriel.”

  The teen paused before responding. “Deputy Findlay, I don’t mean any disrespect, but I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen. I admit I let my anger get the better of me, and I am willing to face the consequences, but there is no way I am spending four years in jail for what happened between Chris and me. My grandfather just retired two years ago as a senior partner from his law firm and my dad has been in law enforcement for almost 20 years. They always spend time at Thanksgiving and Christmas talking about legal cases. I’ve listened enough to them to know that I would be facing assault and battery charges and could be sentenced to two years maximum.

  “And since I have a clean record, and Chris Goodman is up here at least twice a week, a good attorney could probably plea bargain it down to six months’ probation. Like I said before, I’m not trying to be rude or anything, but I’m pretty sure I’m not going to jail for four years for defending myself against a kid who has been harassing me practically since the first week of school.”

  Rodrigues leaned forward again. “Mr. O'Brien, you seem to defend your position fairly well. I’m wondering why you were not enrolled in our AP English Literature class with Mrs. Arana.”

  “I asked to be placed in AP Lit when I enrolled, but since I was a new student, I had low priority and her classes were full already.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to hear that.” Rodrigues paused. “Listen, from what you’ve said, you’ve had a string of very bad luck here. I can talk to Mrs. Arana about you switching into her class at the semester, but that doesn’t solve the immediate problem, does it? I’m glad to hear you are willing to take responsibility for your actions, but I am sorry we didn’t do more to help you out in the first place.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Gabriel, we will be talking with the family while you two are on suspension, so you should just worry about keeping up with your homework while you’re at home. We can worry about the legal ramifications when you return.”

  “OK.” Gabe paused. “Mr. Rodrigues, I had an essay due in Mr. Delaney’s class this period. I have it in my folder. Could I go put it in his mailbox?”

  Rodrigues smiled. “Sure. Just give it to Ms. Oliver and she can take care of it for you. Now, you can go outside and wait for your parents. Who’s coming to get you?”

  “My mom. Dad works in downtown L.A.”

  Findlay turned his head. “LAPD?”

  “FBI. Just got transferred to the L.A. Field Office this summer, which is why we moved from San Diego.”

  “He’s really not going to be happy about this, is he?”

  “Not in the slightest.”

  _____

  Gabe spent the remainder of the week at home either working on homework or doing chores around the house. His father confiscated his wireless headphones and his laptop was relocated to the family room. He wanted to eliminate Gabe’s phone privileges for the week as well, but his mom got Gabe 30 minutes each day after his work was done, primarily so he could talk with or text his girlfriend, Cheyenne. Gabe was tempted to break the 11 p.m. “lights out” rule, but if his dad caught him, he knew the phone time would be the first thing to go.

  At exactly 5:30 Thursday morning, Gabe was awakened by his father’s deep, crisp voice and the sudden illumination inside his previously darkened room. “You’re coming to the office with me today. We’re leaving at six on the nose. Don’t be late.”

  Gabe grumbled as he threw off his blanket. “Dad, I’ve got an essay to write today for Mr. Gould, and I’ve got a worksheet for Spanish III.”

  “Bring it with you.” His dad paused. “And take your headphones. Rush hour traffic is a nightmare, and I know you don’t like talk radio as much as I do.”

  Gabe smiled. “Thanks.”

  “Sure.” His dad eyed his watch. “Twenty-nine minutes and counting.”

  “I know I probably shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth or whatever, but why am I getting sprung from ‘Camp O'Brien’?”

  “Would you rather spend the day cooped up here?”

  “No sir.”

  “Well then, I’d get moving.”

  _____

  The 45-mile drive to the west side of Los Angeles took almost 90 minutes because of the flood of traffic going to work on the October morning. Since the Wilshire exit off the 405 seemed to be under constant construction, they wove through area streets to the four-level parking structure next to the 17-story federal building that housed primarily the FBI Field Office, along with other federal agencies. An oversized American flag and several smaller ones flapped gently in the light breeze at the building’s entrance. Picking up a visitor badge for Gabe, his dad used his ID card several times as they made their way to his seventh-floor office. Gabe took a seat and began his Spanish homework while Rob checked his voice and e-mail before leaving his office. About 30 minutes later, his father and another man in a dark suit
entered the room.

  “Gabe, I want you to meet Stephen Dransfelt. He is the Special Agent in Charge of the L.A. Field Office.”

  The two exchanged greetings, and Gabe was intrigued by how the agent’s firm handshake seemed to contradict his warm smile.

  Rob clasped his son on the shoulder. “Want to take a tour of the place?”

  “Sure.”

  The three took a quick tour of the office, and, while many doors remained unopened, Stephen explained some of the more interesting cases he had worked on in his career with the Bureau. The tour ended at a conference room, which they entered. They all took seats around a large, cherrywood conference table upon which sat an HP laptop next to the 360-degree teleconference phone. Gabe noticed the view of the city of Santa Monica was pretty impressive from up here. As Rob closed the door behind them, Gabe glanced at the large, full-color FBI seal affixed to the far wall that subtly underscored the Bureau’s emphasis on its core values of “Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity.”

  “Gabe, let me be straightforward with you. Your father tells me you had an incident earlier this week at school—”

  His head snapped toward this father. “Dad!”

  His dad raised his hand to silence the protest. “Son, listen to what Agent Dransfelt has to say.”

  The senior officer continued. “Like I was saying. We know about what happened at school. Your father has also talked a great deal about how you would like to pursue a career in law enforcement some day and perhaps even work at the Bureau. Is that still something that interests you?”

  “It was until Chris Goodman suckered me into a fight on Monday. I figure I’ll only get probation, but I know there are a lot of qualified people out there trying to get into law enforcement. This won’t help my chances.”

  “You’re right. While you can probably get a job as campus security at your college and maybe use that to get a job with a police department in a small town, your chances of working here are very slim.” Stephen paused. “That is, unless you help us with something.”