Laugh Cry Repeat

by John Inman

  This can’t be happening. It can’t.

  Two more windows exploded inward. One of the children screamed. The shooter apparently shifted targets, aiming at the other classrooms now. Deeze heard windows shattering farther away in the complex.

  Deeze threw himself over the pile of kids, mumbling apologies for hurting them, but hissing for them to be quiet at the same time. One child latched on to the collar of his shirt with his tiny hand, and gazing down, Deeze realized it was Jake. His eyes were as big as silver dollars.

  “Hush now,” Deeze whispered. “It’ll be all right.”

  Jake nodded, trying to look brave.

  At that moment several things happened at once.

  They heard another pop of gunfire and a scream outside. A man’s scream. Then another of his own classroom windows exploded inward, and a child roared in fright. Deeze watched a bullet hole blossom in the wall in front of him, not six inches from a child’s head. At the same moment a splatter of blood struck Jake’s face, startling both man and boy. Deeze had no idea where the blood came from. Jake whimpered as Deeze dragged him against his chest, still trying to protect the boy, along with all his other students. Only then did he feel a sharp pain and look down to see a furrow of bloodied skin where a bullet had grazed his wrist.

  Was it his own blood that had splattered the boy?

  He pushed the pain away, concentrating on the kids. Keeping them safe was all that mattered.

  Just as he was about to plead to God for a little help, a blaze of white hot agony sliced across his leg. The moment the pain tore into him, an 8 x 10 glossy of Wyeth’s beautiful face flashed before his eyes, as clear as day.

  No, Deeze bellowed inside his head at the unfairness of it all. Not now. Not fucking now.

  Instantly consumed with fury, he raised his head and squinted above the desk at the shattered windows in front of him. Pleading with the kids to stay down, to stay quiet, Deeze crawled and crabwalked below the lip of the windows toward the classroom door. Too mad to be slowed by the pain in his thigh and wrist, he reached up and quietly unlocked the door. Pulling it open just enough to peer through the crack, he scanned the courtyard outside.

  At that moment, the sky opened up and it started raining again. Deeze squinted into the downpour. Then he saw it. Out among the trees, the gun was raised again. More gunshots smacked the side of the building. Glass shards tinkled as another window smashed in the distance. Another child cried out, but it wasn’t one of his students. It was one of the younger students farther away. In the nursery, maybe. My God, the man was shooting at babies!

  Screaming with rage, with nothing inside his head but his own murderous fury, Deeze hurled himself through the classroom door and into the rain. Head down, he ran straight for the shooter. Along the way he spotted Father Mike, lying motionless on the grass, his eyes wide open, staring sightlessly at the brooding sky, unblinking as the rain peppered his face. Not ten feet away lay another man, this one facedown so that Deeze couldn’t see who it was. Without pausing, he stumbled over them both, skidding in the wet grass. He quickly regained his footing and made a beeline for the gunman.

  Deeze’s eyes opened wide in horror as the barrel of the gun pivoted directly toward him. Too furious to stop or cower, he dove straight for it, wrenching the gun from the shooter’s hands before another shot could be fired. Deeze and the shooter tumbled to the ground in a heap. Madder than he had ever been in his life—so mad he was weeping tears of fury—Deeze pummeled the shooter’s face with his bloodied fists.

  He only stopped when the gunman whimpered beneath him. It was a childlike whimper, a sound he’d least expected to hear. Forcing himself to jerk away, he stumbled back, putting some space between him and the shooter. When he did, he saw a boy of maybe thirteen curled up at his feet, crying into the ground.

  Confused but still furious, Deeze grabbed the gun lying in the grass and hurled it as far as he could into the bushes.

  In the distance, he heard the wail of sirens. A chorus of them split the air.

  In the classroom behind him, his students still cried softly. He could hear them over the rain. As he stood there getting soaked, still trying to quell his own fury, a final pane of glass dislodged from its mooring and shattered on the sidewalk, making him jump. Deeze remembered the blood he had seen on little Jakey’s face. He reeled in horror, fear stuttering through him like another spray of bullets. Racing back in the direction from which he’d come, he flung himself through the classroom door to where his terrified students still lay huddled in the corner behind his massive desk, right where he had left them. A bout of dizziness made him falter as relief flooded through him. He stumbled to a halt when his legs wouldn’t move anymore.

  Gazing down at himself, he saw a rivulet of blood seeping from the gunshot wound to his wrist. His pant leg was sodden with blood. He was wracked with pain from one end of his body to the other. Through sheer willpower, he took two more steps toward his kids before his strength gave out completely.

  Like a spectator with a front row seat, Deeze watched the ground rush up toward him. His vision closed in upon itself like a camera shutter winking closed.

  At least the shooting has stopped. And it’s raining again. That’s nice.

  By the time he hit the ground, his mind had closed down completely.

  WYETH AND Agnes Mulroney and a cluster of other library patrons and staff stood glued to the TV in the corner of the employees’ lounge while the news crews on the screen painstakingly extrapolated all the facts—and some of the fiction—from the story unfolding before them. Wyeth knew there were casualties, but he didn’t know how many or who those casualties were. He sat on an old Naugahyde couch next to Agnes, twisting his tie into a sweaty, wrinkled mess, listening to one mindless newscaster after another jabber on and on but never say one single thing that gave him hope that Deeze might be all right. He had tried calling Deeze’s cell phone a dozen times, but his messages were sent to voicemail. Deeze turned his phone off when he worked.

  At least the shooting had ended. He could see by the camera shots from the news helicopter that the area around the school was cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape now. A veritable wall of squad cars still filled the streets surrounding the church, but most of the ambulances had left. He knew it would be pointless to go there. He would just be in the way. All he could do was sit here and watch these stupid news announcers, wringing his hands and wondering what the hell was going on.

  It dawned on him that perhaps he should go back to his apartment. He could escort Agnes home as well. She was clearly distraught. Wyeth studied her with new concern as she sat there beside him staring mindlessly at the TV, all the while shredding a tissue into confetti and letting it drift down around her feet like snowflakes. This was perhaps the first time he had ever seen the woman worried about anyone other than herself. And it wasn’t only Deeze she was worried for—it was Wyeth too. He could see it in the way she reached out, petting him, continually cooing a sort of comforting tuneless melody as she sat there at his side, telling him over and over again that everything would be all right, warning him not to give up hope, not to give in to fear.

  Finally, her kindness tore a hole in Wyeth’s terror.

  “Let me take you home,” he said softly. “You look worn out. As soon as I get you safely back to your apartment, I’ll go to the school. I have to find out what’s going on. Where Deeze is.” His voice almost faltered. “What’s happened to him.”

  To his surprise, she didn’t argue. He took her hand, positioned her squeaky old walker in front of her, and once she was securely on her feet, steered her through the library toward the street.

  Agnes moved so slowly that the walk toward their apartment building seemed endless. Oddly, Wyeth found comfort in the old woman’s presence. There were words on the tip of his tongue that he needed to speak. Words he needed to utter into existence, if for no other reason than to hear them on the air. At least with Agnes there, he had someone to say them to.
/>
  “I don’t know what I’ll do without him if—” But that was as far as he got. He couldn’t bear to finish the sentence, or even to finish the thought. He bit down on his lip and fell silent.

  The rainstorm had lessened. It was merely sprinkling now. Apparently the storm was almost over. Wyeth didn’t care one way or the other and neither, it appeared, did Agnes. In fact, they hardly noticed the rain at all.

  “You won’t lose him,” Agnes said sharply. “God won’t let that happen.”

  There was such conviction in her old eyes, Wyeth was strangely reassured. “No,” he said. “He won’t.” Then a more horrible thought struck him, searing through his head like a bolt of lightning. “My God, his kids! His students. I hope they’re all right. It would kill Deeze if anything happened to them.”

  He was startled to see a tear slide down Agnes’s wrinkled cheek. “Maybe it’s time I stop fighting this damnable cancer and just let myself go.” She gazed along the sodden street as if she had never seen it before, as if she had no idea where she was. “The world has grown cruel since I was a girl. It’s not the way it used to be. I’m not sure I want to live in it anymore. All these shootings. All this hatred.”

  Even in the midst of his own heartache, Wyeth unearthed concern for the woman beside him.

  “If Deeze were here, he’d tease that thinking out of you. He’d tell you to fight and be strong just like you’ve always done.”

  Agnes smiled even as her gaze hardened and her back straightened. A smidgeon of the old fire returned to her eyes. “Yes,” she said through pale, thin lips, impatiently wiping the tears away with a handkerchief she’d plucked from her sleeve. “He’d tear me a new one, he would.”

  Wyeth grinned through his own sadness. “You’re right. He would.”

  Agnes turned to him. Once again, past her tortured smile, Wyeth could see the weariness in her eyes. The illness. She was clearly worn out by her constant battle with the cancer devouring her from the inside. And now this new worry over Deeze. She suddenly appeared too frail to fight so many battles at once. There were too many enemies, too many terrors, closing in from all sides. Tears once again welled up in her eyes. She stumbled and almost fell.

  “Agnes, take my arm,” Wyeth whispered. “Lean on me. Let’s get you home.”

  She did as he asked, ceding control of the walker, which he folded up and tucked under his arm. Wrapping his free arm about her waist, he was startled to feel how thin she was. She weighed almost nothing. She was also clearly at the end of her strength. Muttering encouraging words, he ushered her along the street, letting her cling to him, hoping to get her home before she collapsed.

  Just shy of the front door to their apartment building, another body snugged up close and took Agnes by the other arm. It was Laurie, Deeze’s cousin. The one who ran the tanning shop.

  “I was at the library looking for you. They told me you’d gone home,” Laurie said to Wyeth while together they steered Agnes through the door and led her to the elevator at the back of the lobby.

  Perhaps too weary for once in her life to butt her way into someone else’s conversation, Agnes stood silently against the elevator wall, clutching her heart, as the car rose quickly through the bowels of the building. Still, her eyes never left off shifting between Wyeth and Laurie at either side of her. A stray thought flashed through Wyeth’s mind that despite how sick and worried she was, Agnes was probably curious about Laurie. He would make a point to tell her more about Deeze’s cousin later.

  “What have you heard?” Wyeth asked, desperately peering into Laurie’s eyes, looking for the truth. “Tell me, Laurie. Please. Is Deeze okay? Those bodies on the lawn….”

  Laurie’s spikey hairstyle had been laid flat by the rain. It made her look diminished somehow. Not as dauntless as she usually appeared. But there was the same tenacious snap of fortitude in her eyes that had been there the one and only other time Wyeth had met her—on the day of his first and last spray tan at the Tan Banana.

  “He’s hurt, but no one would tell me how badly. They’ve taken him to the emergency room, along with several other people. I was coming to get you and take you there with me when I saw you guys on the street.” Laurie reached around the old woman and patted Wyeth’s arm. “Don’t worry. Deeze will be all right. He’s strong. He’ll survive this.”

  The elevator dinged, and the doors opened. Agnes heaved herself off the wall and plucked her walker from under Wyeth’s arm. “You two go,” she said. “Go to the hospital. Deeze will want you there.” She stepped closer to Wyeth and laid her old head against his chest, then just as quickly stepped away. “Now go. Get out of here. The man you love needs you. Don’t make him wonder why you haven’t come.”

  “No,” Wyeth said, touched by the gentle sincerity in the woman’s eyes and the simple truth of her words. “I won’t.”

  Without speaking again, she took a firm grip on her rattling walker and took off at a snail’s pace down the hall.

  Wyeth and Laurie watched her go.

  “She’s dying, isn’t she?” Laurie asked quietly.

  “Yes,” Wyeth answered, and taking Laurie’s hand, he pulled her back into the elevator. With a jolt and the ding of the doors closing in front of them, they headed down.

  THEY WOULDN’T let them see Deeze. Not yet.

  Deeze lay out of sight on a gurney in a treatment room in Mercy’s ER. It was the same place he had brought Agnes only the day before. While Laurie and Wyeth waited, they sat saddened and stunned, holding hands, staring at the television hanging high on the waiting room wall. Local news gave a steady stream of updates about the shooting at St. Luke’s. It didn’t take long before they were reasonably well informed about everything that had happened.

  All the newscasters seemed to agree on one thing. It could have been a lot worse than it actually was. Two men, a priest and a teacher, had lost their lives. Still, the body count could have been much higher. And most importantly of all, not one child was harmed.

  Of course, a lot about the incident was still unknown. The biggest question being the shooter’s motive and identity. For with all the information flying around about the event, so far the police had released nothing about the person who started it all.

  Still, both Wyeth and Laurie had to smile when one of the announcers called Mr. Long, the kindergarten teacher who singlehandedly stopped the shooting by disarming the gunman, a hero. Wyeth did even more than smile. He swelled with pride.

  He turned to Laurie and quietly asked, “Where’s his family? Deeze never talks about them, but they should be here, don’t you think?”

  Wyeth watched Laurie fiddle with a button on her overalls, clearly uncomfortable with the question. Dropping the button, she slouched back in the chair and stared once more at the TV in front of them. It was airing a Tylenol commercial now, like a headache pill would help them get through this horrible fucking day.

  “Deeze’s folks died in a car crash a few years ago. Deeze was grown when it happened. He had no siblings, just a couple of distant cousins like me. He’s made it on his own ever since.”

  “He never told me.”

  “He doesn’t like to talk about it. Deeze can be private with the things he feels strongly about. It runs in our family. I’m not a blabbermouth either.”

  Wyeth considered snickering at that but thought better of it. “But what about aunts and uncles? Where are your parents, Laurie? Do they live out of town? Why aren’t they here?”

  “My parents are probably sitting in church somewhere, blaming Deeze’s lifestyle for what happened to him. Just like they blame my lifestyle for everything bad that happens to me.”

  “Oh,” Deeze said, understanding completely. After all, there was a pretty potent strain of homophobia in his own family back in Indiana. Like Deeze, he too had turned his back and walked away from the hatred.

  “Poor Deeze,” he mumbled to himself.

  Laurie stared down at her hands. “It’s hard being different. Don’t let anybody tell
you otherwise.”

  Wyeth couldn’t have argued with that statement even if he wanted to. He had lived it long enough to know she was right.

  A moment later, a nurse beckoned them toward the back.

  At the treatment room door, a doctor intervened and informed them the police had finished questioning Deeze for now. While Deeze’s injuries were superficial, the doctor still requested only one person see him at a time. Laurie immediately pushed Wyeth toward the swinging doors, telling him to go, to hurry, she’d wait for him in the waiting room.

  Wary, Wyeth peeked around the treatment room door. Deeze lay on a gurney. He was still dressed in his blood-spattered trousers, but his shirt and shoes and socks were gone. His hair was wild and his face gaunt. He looked like he had aged two decades since Wyeth saw him that morning.

  “Father Mike is dead,” Deeze said, spotting Wyeth at the door. They were the first words out of his mouth.

  Wyeth stepped to the edge of the gurney. Deeze’s pant leg was slit to the thigh where the doctors had bandaged the wound from a shard of window glass that had pierced Deeze’s leg, cutting deep but missing any major arteries. His wrist, where a bullet had grazed his skin, was neatly wrapped in gauze as well. His hands and knees were stained with yellow disinfectant applied to the countless cuts and abrasions he’d inflicted upon himself by crawling back and forth over the broken window glass on the classroom floor. Strangely, every injury he received was little more than a flesh wound. Deeze had been lucky. Even he knew it.

  Wyeth had heard about Father Mike’s death on the news while he and Laurie were waiting. He remembered the day Deeze introduced the priest to him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said now, resting a consoling hand on one of the few uninjured spots he could find, Deeze’s bare shoulder.

  Even with his raw and battered hands, Deeze rolled toward Wyeth and clutched his arm, his eyes pleading. “The kids,” he said. “Are they all right? The police said they are, but I don’t know whether to believe them or not, and no one will talk to me. Tell me, Wy. Were the kids all okay? Did they—survive?”