Pack

by Mike Bockoven

  What Stu remembered, more than anything, was something the camera couldn’t show. The moment after the gun went off the boy, pudgy and dirty, clearly a product of neglect, had widened his eyes and stared at Stu, every part of him screaming “I wish I could take this back.” Memories of the boy’s eyes had burrowed into Stu’s psyche and stayed there, returning again and again, giving the cop no respite, hollowing him out emotionally. Then came the aftermath.

  Of course, there was an official investigation that basically cleared him of wrongdoing, but it wasn’t the official stuff that really twisted Stu’s guts, it was the everyday stuff. It ruined his day when people yelled at him from passing cars on the street. It sucked in a big bad way when his Facebook profile was hacked and flooded with photos of the dead kid in the middle of the road. And he drank a little more the night his mother told him the ladies at the church were “talking.” But, as he told his sister over the phone, it was happening to him but in some way it felt like it was really happening to somebody else.

  “They’re only clichés because they work,” she had said. And she was right. Like always.

  Since they were kids, Stu and his sister Dana had shared an odd relationship. She was two years older and while Stu had always been solid, if a little timid as a boy, it was clear from the time she was a toddler that Dana could track, kill, and eat her own food. She was the person you wanted on your side in a fight as long as you were absolutely sure that she was going to land on your side. One defining moment in their relationship centered around Stu getting in a scuffle at school in a hallway where bad things frequently happened. He was giving as good as he got in the way boys fight to maximize movement but minimize the possibility of someone actually getting hit. The fight was almost over and Stu was started to let up only to be jerked up by his hair, hard, by Dana and thrown into the corner. She was mad at him for making a scene and embarrassing her, so she decided to end it. The kid Stu was fighting had run off and dinner was a very awkward affair that night.

  But they had been in good shape for a while. Dana had come out to her parents when she was twenty and seeing how she handled an awkward and potentially explosive situation had been something Stu remembered, even years later. Dana had laid out the facts in a reasonable manner—she was a girl and her romantic partners were going to be girls and she had known this was the way things were going to be for quite some time—and shut down all the stupid questions her mom and dad had thrown at her while answering the smart ones. Stu, who was seventeen at the time, was listening from down the hall and started to really admire the way Dana could deflect all the bullshit she must have known was coming her way.

  “Maybe this is a phase” was met with “I don’t believe that’s the case and regardless, this is the way things are for now and you need to accept that.”

  “What about a family” was met with “I’m not interested in a family but if I was, adoption is a very good option, given the number of children who need stable homes.”

  “You’re going against God’s law,” from their mother was met with “this conversation is done until you can accept me for who I am.” And then she followed up, not speaking to her folks for two years, during which Stu was the go-between. It was during this time they established their rapport that carried them into adulthood. Stu had learned to accept that Dana, strong, confident Dana, was right about most things and the things she was wrong about sounded pretty decent and logical coming out of her mouth.

  “Do you think your life is viable there anymore?” she had asked him about a week after the incident had made his life nearly intolerable. “Can you live this down and if you do, what are you left with?”

  “I’m definitely not living it down,” Stu said. “The thing that sucks most about it is, if you look at the rules, I’m in the clear. I didn’t do anything wrong, you know?”

  “That’s good as far as it goes but I’m talking about you,” Dana said, bringing it back. “What I’m talking about is making a clean start somewhere else. You don’t have much tying you to Detroit anymore. Not Mom and Dad, that’s for sure.”

  “I’m not moving to Florida,” Stu said. “Speaking of clichés.”

  Their parents were exactly where retired people of moderate resources ended up—a Florida retirement community. Stu hadn’t been down in a year and even then buoyed the chore by promising himself and his then girlfriend an afternoon at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

  “I don’t want to sound like the cranky lesbian Mom thinks I am, but here’s what I see. I see my brother without a job he enjoys, without a girlfriend, and the frequent target for people who throw things from their car. Get outta there, Stu.”

  “And go where? You think this isn’t going to follow me?”

  “Sure it’ll follow you,” she said. “So you find something out of the way, you do that job for five years or so until this blows over, more or less, and then you’re back doing what you want to do by the time you’re forty.”

  Again, she sounded reasonable.

  “I guess,” Stu said. “But I don’t know where to start.”

  “That’s kind of what I called to talk to you about,” Dana said, showing her first sign of hesitancy. “There’s this job down here …”

  “No. No. I am not moving to Nebraska. Nobody lives in Nebraska.”

  “That’s the whole damn point, brother!”

  “I am not living anywhere where I can’t get a decent sandwich twenty-four hours.”

  “Don’t be a snob.”

  “I’m not a snob. You know I don’t have any money saved up.”

  “Being a snob isn’t about money, you idiot. It’s about your attitude. You think because you can see live music on a Tuesday or ride a bus or get a sandwich at four in the morning, which is awful for you by the way, that somehow makes you superior to people who live in the sticks? What an asshole thing to think. I can tell you a thousand good things about living here. First and foremost is that there are not a lot of people to bother you, which is something you need right now, and second, your big sister lives in the sticks and is more than happy to help you get back on your feet.”

  “I thought snob meant rich.”

  “Yeah, you’re wrong on that.”

  Stu had ended the call in a good place but totally, unequivocally sure that he was not moving to Nebraska, much less rural Nebraska. He spent the next day online, avoiding news sites and looking for jobs in law enforcement. Then in law enforcement support. Then he widened his search and, by the time the next day rolled around, the little bomb his sister had implanted in his head had started to make little explosions in his brain. Maybe he needed a clean break. Maybe the sticks wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe he could order the makings of a decent sandwich online or something. He held out another day and then called Dana back.

  “Knew you’d call,” she said, not bothering with any sort of greeting. “You held out longer than I thought.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “You’re always right.”

  •••

  The interview for Sheriff Grey Allen’s position was an easy one being that there were not a lot of applicants and those who had applied were not the sort of folk you’d want mowing your lawn, much less wearing a badge. Two applicants had criminal records, one had a warrant out for his arrest (“it was only a speeding ticket”), one gentleman might have worked if not for his need to take harvest season off and then there was Stu. Tack on to that the need for someone on the job ASAFP, the fact that he had law enforcement training equivalent to what was needed in the job and was willing to relocate and the whole incident in Detroit was overlooked.

  That’s how it came to be that Stu found himself with his sister’s arms around him being welcomed into her home just two months and a week after watching a boy die. Dana and her wife Robin had their own business roasting very specific sorts of coffee which they sold online. Apparently things had been going well because they had added on to their house which sat on about ten acres of land about a mile and a
half off the highway.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” she said, continuing the big hug born more out of sympathy than affection, Stu figured. She smelled like coffee in a very pleasant way.

  “Good to be here, I guess,” Stu said. “I wish it was under better circumstances. Hey, Robin!”

  Robin had poked her head out from the house and waved. Short-haired, slim and always impeccably put together, Robin was one of the cutest women, in Stu’s estimation, that had ever walked on two legs. She was overly friendly and a great cook, something Stu was hoping would come into play shortly. Before leaving Detroit he had tried to make a tour of his favorite eateries only to get variations of the “whisper and point” wherever he went. Apparently he was still big news. The bottom line was he had eaten Subway and its analogs for most of the past week and a half.

  “Hey Stu!” Robin yelled back. “I’d come give you a hug, too, but I’m setting the table. Come eat.”

  Magic words. He did eat, a lovely spread starting with walnut and cranberry salad leading into a fantastic pasta dish with some sort of cream sauce and mushrooms and topped with strawberries on a biscuit. Stu was about ready to pop by the time Dana handed him a beer and told him to come out to the porch, an expansive affair that ran the length of the house. They settled onto chairs with metal lattice backs and Stu took a long swig of the beer.

  “Lucky Bucket,” Dana said. “Brewed about a hundred miles from here, give or take. You still a beer guy?”

  “At this point I’m an ‘anything I can drink’ sort of guy.”

  “Don’t be like that,” she said. “If you turn into a drunk I’m going to beat the shit out of you and bury you neck deep in my garden until you come out of it. No rehab for you, my friend. It’s the garden all the way and the snails and birds will be your only companions.”

  “Good to know someone’s looking out for me, I suppose.”

  “So, do you want to address this ‘woe is me thing’ for a little longer or do you want me to tell you about the job you start on Monday?” Dana said. “Cause I can do either one. Or both, but I’m going to need more beer.”

  “I think I’ve got some ‘woe is me’ coming,” he said. “Or didn’t you watch the video.”

  Dana had never actually brought up the specifics of “the incident” other than to offer some much welcomed sympathy. The truth of the matter was Stu was feeling sorry for himself but he had three excellent reasons, to his mind, a pity party made all sorts of sense.

  Reason one was the obvious. He had left his job, his girlfriend had left and he couldn’t go out in public without significant negative attention from strangers. Reason two played into the fears he had always harbored about himself. Stu didn’t have the highest self-esteem but being a cop was something he was good at and was one of the cornerstones he had built his identity on. Technically he was a cop again, but by all accounts a disgraced cop, a failed cop, a cop who took a risk during a precarious situation and paid a price for it.

  It was the third reason that he hadn’t reckoned with yet. Post-traumatic stress was something Stu had been tested for before he had unceremoniously left the Detroit Police Department and he wasn’t sure what he was experiencing was covered by that particular diagnosis anyway. If he were to be dramatic about it he would say his experience was less “traumatic stress” and more “being haunted.” Between six and twenty times a day, the face of the boy, his eyes extremely wide in surprise and pain, floated into his mind’s eye.

  I want to take this back. I want to take this back.

  He had been living with the “haunting” for long enough to notice a few patterns. He would know by the time he plugged in his electric shaver in the morning whether it was going to be a good day or a bad day. On a good day, the kid’s face would float and he would feel a familiar dropping sensation in his stomach just a few times and it wasn’t enough to significantly affect his mood. On a bad day he would have to roll with it, play out scenarios in his head, letting the scene play out over and over throughout the day. He would think what he could have done differently and how it would have played out with a pain and anxiety that, after a time, got to be familiar. He even started actively thinking about his “haunting” while he worked out and the pain and drive it gave him, plus the extra time he had on his hands, had put Stu in the best shape of his life. He had thought of some of these scenarios so often that they almost seemed like a well-worn VHS tape he would play a dozen times when he was a kid and the pain was not friendly, exactly, but more safe.

  While, outwardly, the “haunting” didn’t change anything about his day-to-day routine, it was making him pretty damn miserable. The worst kind of pain, Stu figured, was the kind that made no mark and couldn’t be shared with anyone else. Even his sister.

  “Of course I watched the video,” she said after a longer than usual silence for her. “It was awful, Stu.”

  For a moment, all that was audible was the wind in the trees, making a rustling that was loud when you stopped to listen to it. For the first time in a long time, Stu’s mind was blank, then he realized the silence was going on for too long and something probably should be said.

  “Thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “For saying it was awful,” Stu said. “No one does that. I get a lot of ‘you did what you could’s and a few ‘you should’ve done that’s but no ‘that’s awful.’ Thanks.”

  Another couple of seconds, another big gust rattled a thousand leaves into a loud burst of sound. It wasn’t unlike a scream, Stu thought.

  “Are the trees always this loud?”

  “Yeah,” Dana said. “It was one of the first things I noticed when we moved out here. Nature is not a quiet lady.”

  “Neither are you,” Stu said.

  “Got that right, brother. I have a lot of friends back East and they all have opinions about living in Nebraska. I remember this one girl, Taylor Gainsberg, you remember her?”

  Stu shook his head.

  “She wasn’t gay but was very touchy feely in high school … anyway, she had this loud nasal voice …”

  “Wait, was she the ‘Mr. Daaaaavidson’ girl?” Stu suddenly recalled a birthday party where one of the guests had latched on to a funny vocal affectation and ran with it the entire night. In his memory the girls had made fun of a teacher named Mr. Davidson and one girl had drawn the name out so it took three or four seconds to say, all at a high, nasal pitch. It had become a family joke, briefly, until their mother had shut it down.

  “Yeah, that was her. I remember running in to her last time I was back East and she asked where I was living and after I told her she said “Nebraaaaaskaaaa, nobody lives in Nebraaaaskaaa.”

  Stu smiled and leaned back on the warm metal of the lattice chair.

  “I told her I live in Nebraaaaaskaaa. I said it just like that but in my normal tone of voice, and she kind of got pissy and left. You basically said the same thing on the phone a few weeks back.”

  Dana swigged her beer and Stu felt sufficiently sheepish.

  “Point of the story is most folks can’t fathom living out here. There are only a few restaurants in driving distance, only one grocery store worth going to, there are bugs and deer and you can get where you’re going in five minutes. Truth of the matter is I’ve only been out here a few years and I can’t imagine not living here.”

  “Really?” Stu asked.

  “Really really,” Dana said. “If I had to move back to Detroit … hell, if I had to move up to Sioux Falls, I think I’d be miserable real quick.”

  “Why? You can sit on a porch in a city. You can see a movie in the morning, you can see live music on a Tuesday night, you can …”

  “All that shit is secondary, man,” Dana said, waving his argument off with her beer bottle. “All that shit, that’s just to feel important. People think that if they’re surrounded by people doing interesting and important things they’ll be interesting and important when the opposite is true. You can waste your life in a city the way
you could never, ever waste it out here. This …”

  She paused for effect. The wind cooperated.

  “This, you and me sitting out on a porch listening to the wind, this is just as important as any of that meaningless crap you just said. Out here you’ve got to reckon with yourself. Out here, you can figure out who you are. Or you can perfect it. Ahh, speaking of perfect …”

  Robin had made her way out to the porch and had pulled up a chair. Dana scooched over and put her arm around her wife.

  “I was just giving Stu the ‘why we live in the country speech.’”

  “Did you pause for effect?”

  “Sure did.”

  “Do you think he bought it?” Robin said, her big brown eyes looking Stu up and down for what he would mistake as attraction if he didn’t know better.

  “Hard to see. He’s stubborn.”

  “He’s also about done with this beer,” Stu said. “I would stipulate to all your points if I had another beer in my hand in the next five minutes.”

  •••

  There’s being full, and then there’s what Stu would refer to in the future as being “Robin Full.”

  Regular full was having eaten until it was prudent to stop. “Robin Full” involved shoveling food hard and fast for an extended period of time because it was so fresh, so flavorful, so sweet, so perfect that stopping just didn’t make sense. Then, after the food was gone, you regretted it.

  In the following week, dinner had been at Dana and Robin’s three times and Stu had eaten more than was socially acceptable (“are you kidding me with this guy?” Robin had asked) at each sitting. He was staying in a bed and breakfast, about fifteen miles away from Cherry in a town called Springview so it wasn’t that much of a trek, although he couldn’t drink more than a few beers before hitting the road. The owner of the B&B had big dreams of something called “Sandhills Tourism.” Stu found her friendly and strange.