Peter stood and walked to the cruiser. Its familiar lines, the horror it struck in some, the relief in others. He got in and drove. He checked his watch and noted the time. He placed his final call. Kevin picked up on the first ring.
"Are you in place?”
Kevin heard his best friend’s voice and thought he sounded as he always did while wearing the uniform.
"I’m here.”
"Good. I’ll be there in two minutes.”
Kevin began to choke. He had more to say, more than he ever had to say before. He reached through the phone; at least it felt as if he were. His heart was broken and his resolve was crumbling.
Peter knew it. The silence was crushing in its meaning. He had asked a friend to do what no friend should ever ask.
"Kevin?”
Kevin was doing what he could to remain level.
He breathed out slowly.
"Kevin, stay on task….. Keep your word.”
Kevin was incapable of speech. He looked at the phone, and it held no comfort.
"Kevin.”
"Yeah, Peter, I’m here.
Peter let himself think of it for a split second. Had anyone ever undertaken an obligation such as this?
Peter parked his cruiser and looked about. The area was as grey as his soul, all concrete and corrugation.
"This is the only way. I am dying, and you are saving me, saving my son.” Peter didn’t dare say his son’s name. At this point hearing it spoken out loud would have left him stranded.
Kevin sniffed and cleared his throat. He finally spoke. “I’ll keep him safe.” It was all he could muster.
"You tell him no father ever loved his son more.”
Peter was back inside his patrol car. He looked around one more time then keyed the mic.
"Control, 4L24, 10-37.”
"4L24, go ahead,” the dispatcher replied.
"I’ll be out with one in the area of Chabot and Jennings.”
"Control copies, out with one.”
Peter stepped from his vehicle and walked to the front of it. He drew his service pistol as he had a thousand times in the course of his duties. This time there was no one to point it at.
Several hundred yards away, Peter’s best friend was waiting in darkness. In less than a minute an all too familiar sound would crack the air around him.
Peter wouldn’t hear it. For him, the world would have already ceased to exist.
Kevin spoke to no one. He was speaking to God, but he knew God was not listening, nor would he ever again. He found Peter through the scope. His eyes would not focus. His breathing was labored with the effort of it.
Peter lifted his pistol and fired three times. His target was not important, the gesture was.
Kevin knew he would never be the same man.
Peter let the pistol fall to his side and closed his eyes. On his lips his son’s name.
Kevin kept his promise.
Keeping a Promise
The water ran over him without cure, one hand on his heart, the other over his mouth. He rocked forward and back, his eyes looking down, always down. Humans are flawed. Kevin was soul-less, lost to his race.
Not far off the phone would ring, then his pager.
In preparation, Kevin had taken leave. Those who worked closely with him believed he was out of town. It didn’t matter. Everyone at the department knew the bond Kevin and Peter shared. They would find him, and several would come. The team commander had lost men before, had seen the result of those left behind. When one falls, all are damaged. He would know/believe this would be something altogether different.
The internal dialogue was rampant. Absent was the coordination of thought necessary to gauge time. Kevin stood in the shower a long time. No attempt was constructed at restoring clean. Clean was a state of being for the living. At some point hot water was replaced by cold. His head on fire, his skin unsympathetic, he remained. Too soon, too soon he thought. Kevin turned off the water and lowered himself to the floor, a towel beneath him; he laid adrift, his world a tiny space. In a room occupied solely by pain, Kevin let go, his wails of grief, a song the dead never hear.
Blackness and shadows were interrupted by light.
Kevin didn’t know the time, didn’t care. He hadn’t left the bathroom, he was unsure if he ever would. His skin had dried at some point. He was seated now; his legs folded beneath him like a child.
There were things to be done. His pager had beeped consistently for the past several hours. It was odd, he thought. He was sure his team thought him on vacation, probably with a drink in his hand, sand beneath his feet, and ocean looming just ahead. No one would suspect, or believe Kevin the monster he actually was.
Officers were grieving, cursing the gods for taking such a fine man. They would put together the pieces, construct the crime scene, measure distances, wound patterns, trajectory of the flight of the lethal round. Officers would be sent out in teams to scourer the surrounding businesses, fields, and hillsides. They would call it an ambush, a direct assault against the entire police department, an act of domestic terrorism. Surrounding agencies would be notified, all would want to help, all would feel what all felt. Those who wear the badge know the reality of what they do. They don’t speak of it, but they know. People hate the police. Until they need them. Police officers are killed for no other reason than being police officers.
Kevin rubbed his skin without feeling it. He cried until no more tears seemed possible. His head was the one thing he could feel; however, that was an abstract lesion as well. There would be more time for this. That was a thought he gave some consideration. This action had an everlasting reaction. Kevin didn’t have to trouble himself with the idea of ever being free of this considerable burden.
His life, if you could have ever called it that, was an immeasurable lie, and piled upon the heaping rotting mountain of sin was the final act, the one he would not outrun. Somehow he had maintained a safe distance from the rest of them. Somehow his past performance walked itself to the park; shit on its own time, just a matter of training and discipline he supposed, like all animals capable of learning.
He had taught the dead to stay dead.
But they had been strangers.
Peter Stone was Kevin’s best friend. Peter was Kevin’s brother. Peter had never perpetrated a harmful ill-intentioned act in his entire life. He was an innocent soul, a strong man concealing a child’s heart. Peter was a father. And now, Peter was a memory, a story to be told by those who knew him best.
There were no more prayers to be said.
Kevin wouldn’t ask for anymore favors, he didn’t believe anyone had ever listened anyway. How do you do it? How do you take a man like Peter, give him a disease untreatable, force a position of absolutes? Kevin had tainted so many lives, hurt so many men. What had Will told him, Monsters Kevin, you’re killing monsters. Who was the monster now?
And these men, these monsters, didn’t they have families? Didn’t they have people who loved them despite their indulgencies and indiscretions?
Kevin was sure they did.
So that was it then, Kevin the fucking murdering asshole lives on, while Peter the good dies by his hand.
The world as we know it.
Oh Christ and Ethan, what about Ethan? He was supposed to look him in the eye and speak quietly of his father’s passing, hold him and comfort him, tell him someday it would be alright. It wouldn’t, Kevin knew that, it never would be alright, just another hole aligning itself with the rest that would follow. Each a different size and texture but none familiar, each its own gnawing greedy leach attaching a foothold to one’s soul.
A thought interrupted, He could end it all now.
Ethan would mourn only one man, Kevin would simply be an afterthought. What was that kind old lady’s name? Jenny? Julie? Janet, that was it, Janet. Ethan would receive a million dollars at least. When Kevin had joined on with the P.D. he had no family left, didn’t know who to sign as beneficiary in the case of his own dea
th. After meeting Ethan, he had made the choice. Janet would be a wall of support and Ethan would gain enough from his survivor benefits to last them both their lifetimes. Now he was talking, Kevin finally felt a lift, a moment of purpose. He walked to his bedroom, opened the nightstand drawer, removed the snub-nose 357 he kept there.
Kevin lay in his bed, the gun in his right hand. He was still naked. His skin was white and spotted in patches from the cold.
"Check the cylinder, asshole” he spoke to himself.
The words were the only sound in the dark space.
Kevin opened the cylinder, spun it slowly. Six perfect rounds, only one going to the dance, though.
Kevin found the trigger -- smooth, polished metal -- so familiar to his index finger, so natural, the meeting of the opposite particles of matter.
One pull, he thought, one eight pound squeeze and it all goes away. Never again will you hurt; never again will the dead find you in the dark. Pull it, pull it and become the dark.
Kevin pressed the cold steel muzzle to his temple. He worked it in for a second or two, had to get this right, one shot at glory.
Kevin had made a promise.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The days moved into light, then into dark, and into light as they always had. Nothing changes, everything changes. It was cloudy; his mind was as dark as the sky.
He had answered the page, finally. He had presented himself as he should. His commander spoke to him alone, in hushed even tones. Kevin didn’t have to pretend to be grief stricken or surprised. He behaved as anyone who knew him would have expected. Ethan was with him; or rather he was with Ethan. They had been at Peter and Ethan’s house since Kevin pulled himself together enough to pick Ethan up from Janet. Janet was inconsolable. She told Kevin she would keep Ethan as long as he needed.
Kevin thanked her for all that she’d already done, said he would be in touch, but in the end he took Ethan with him. Ethan had already been told by the time Kevin had arrived. Another screw up, he supposed, couldn’t even be the one to break it to the kid. Kevin was there now, and he intended to pull himself out of his own vortex of guilt and self-pity and help Ethan. If Peter could see him now, he would be pissed.
It gave him a smear of comfort thinking of Peter’s presence, a lingering of love for the boy. He called to him; Ethan had been in his room the entire night. Tomorrow was Peter’s funeral. He needed to speak with Ethan, figure some things out.
Ethan moved down the hall, his light footsteps barely leaving a trace. He plopped down beside Kevin -- looked at him -- his eyes were red and swollen.
“I’m not going to tell you things that make no sense, like everything will be fine, and you’ll get over this, cause you won’t and it never will be. What I can do, all that I can really offer is to be here, always.”
Ethan didn’t say anything.
“Your father was my best friend and I would have done anything for him. He was the only family I had, now you’re the only family I have.”
Ethan’s eyes welled up. New tears were forming. “Why did this happen to him, why my dad, why?”
Kevin was walking a narrow path here and the railing had already disappeared. Ethan folded over, his pain so fresh and complete. Kevin pulled him close, stroked his hair and whispered. He felt for the kid in a way no one else could. How old had he been when his father died, when his brother died, and then his mother left him forever as well.
Kevin was a poster child for loss.
"I’ll help you, Ethan, every way that I can. I’ll be here for you and you for me. We’ll be okay, buddy. Someday we’ll be okay.”
Kevin repeated the soft soothing tones, kept vigil over the boy until finally his pain turned into exhaustion, and he slept.
Over three thousand cops showed up for Peter’s funeral. Agencies from as far away as Texas had sent officers to show their respect. The line of cars and motorcycles lined the streets for a mile. Traffic was shut down for several miles in either direction of the church. Kevin was dressed in class “A” uniform, as was the rest of his department. He would have been one of the six carrying in Peter’s casket if not for his obligation to Ethan. It wasn’t his place anyway.
He held Ethan’s hand as they moved through the crowded lobby, finding their way to the front of the church. Two seats were reserved for them. The team members who knew them best had little to offer. Nods and smiles were painted from sadness and grief. It was akin to being buried alive, the mass of officers, the huge picture of Peter in uniform above the casket, the draped flag; it all suffocated the senses when your emotions had already been depleted without reserve.
Kevin placed Ethan in front of him as the crowd thickened along the final pass of walkway.
They reached their seats, sat without comment.
Ethan was staring at the picture of his father. Peter’s eyes were so much like his own. Of all the people in that church, Kevin was alone in his knowledge.
He felt like screaming. An urge poured through his veins to admit his part, ask for no quarter, beg only for shots to ring out and end his miserable existence. Instead, he held Ethan’s hand and sat quietly.
Words increased the pain. Words of friendship, prayers and farewells, all were designed to give the survivors closure. Kevin didn’t feel like it would ever be beyond him, he was sure Ethan mirrored his emotion.
All were dismissed; the casket was prepared for departure to its final resting place. Kevin and Ethan stood in front of the line as the casket was walked to the awaiting hearse.
A bugler played TAPS, the siren song when the man who serves to protect others dies in the line of duty. It was a reminder to all how fleeting life is, especially when you wear the uniform. Kevin’s tears rained new.
At the cemetery, more words were said. The chief handed Ethan a folded flag and said “Bless your father for the commitment and bravery he has always shown.” Ethan accepted it like a tiny soldier. His father would have been proud.
They remained until Ethan was ready to leave. He sat beside the freshly opened ground, looked into the space where his father would lie eternal. He had passed distraught some time ago. His little boy resolve had found a place, and for a moment at least he appeared at peace.
"I don’t want to remember him like this.”
Kevin moved to sit beside him. He put my arm around his thin shoulders.
“You remember the man who raised you and loved you above all others. Every day you talk to him. You talk and he will listen, he’ll always be around, always help when you need him.”
Ethan looked to Kevin and asked, 'How?'
"The body passes, Ethan. It happens to every one of us at some point, but the soul, the spirit of love, of support and kindness stays. You may not hear him at first, but I swear to you, he’ll always be out there looking over you, keeping you safe.”
Ethan looked back into the hole, at the casket, and then stood.
"Can we go now?”
"Sure.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Nights would again be the hardest. For Kevin they always had been. After putting Ethan to bed and staying with him until he slept, Kevin was now alone with his memories. He sat in the recliner that had belonged to Peter. He sat there and looked at the wall of pictures, the one’s of Ethan growing up and of trips taken and laughs and hugs shared. Peter in uniform, probably his first day, so much younger and full of life. He searched the wall and saw a timetable of a good life, a great life. One photograph caught his eye. Of the countless times he had been over for football games and cook-outs and everything in-between, Kevin hadn’t seen this picture before.
It was an old Polaroid, faded slightly, a rough edge. It was of Peter and him, skinny arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders, the sun somewhere high in the sky. Kevin was squinting with one eye, attempting to hold the other open. It was in front of that old barn at his grandfather’s place. They couldn’t have been more than fourteen.
Kevin plucked the picture from the wall, examined it more closely, ran
his finger along the edges. Where did it all go? Where does it go? Kevin held on to the picture as if doing so would bring Peter back.
He sat back down and looked at the faces of two little boys, a memory of better days, a brief glimpse of some future promise. All by the wayside now. All dreams must end, as all lives eventually do. It was the ultimate test of will he supposed.
Why do we go on? When the ones you loved leave you, what is left to remain for? Kevin didn’t get it and doubted he ever would. So he put the thoughts aside, the bad ones anyway. He had this moment for now, and for the rest he had a child who needed him, and would for some time to come. Kevin’s body took care of the rest. Sleep had never been an ally, but it had been necessary. Exhaustion crept in and took him from his struggles.
Morning broke through the kitchen’s bay window. Kevin had fallen asleep in the recliner; he awoke with a head full of ache and the Polaroid still in his hand. He moved slowly to the kitchen sink, splashed water on his face and brewed some coffee. Sitting at the small table with his first cup of coffee, Kevin felt anxious.
He had made his choice the same moment he made that fateful promise.
He would resign his position with the Police Department. Kevin didn’t need more reminding of the life he had had, of the time spent side by side with the one he eventually destroyed. He hadn’t thought that far beyond it. He knew he would leave the force, the rest was still unknown. Ethan walked down the hall then, his pajamas wrinkled with disturbed sleep.
“Hey, pal.”
“Hey.”
“You want some breakfast?”
Ethan moved his head side to side.
“Okay, but you still need to eat, buddy, maybe a piece of toast or something, huh?”
"Toast would be okay.”
Kevin bent down and kissed the top of Ethan’s head as he moved toward the pantry. He returned with sourdough and wheat. To his surprise Ethan asked for sourdough. Toast buttered, both sat and ate quietly. Kevin tried not to watch too closely, but couldn’t help it; he really wanted to minimize the pain Ethan was feeling. Still, there were no words that would do that.
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