Saving Room for Dessert

by K. C. Constantine

  “About? It didn’t have to be about anything.”

  “No, James, think this through. C’mon, you’re very close. Don’t stop thinking now. What was it about?”

  “It was about him, you know, just fuckin’ with me. Humiliatin’ me. Givin’ everybody a laugh.”

  “So what was it about?”

  “It was about him … him doin’ what he wanted ’ with me.”

  “That’s right, James. Which meant he had the what?”

  “He had the power.”

  “Exactly, James. He had the power. To do what he wanted. Why did he have the power?”

  “Because … I don’t know, ’cause there was nothin’ to stop him.”

  “Exactly. For no other reason than there was nothing, and nobody, to stop him.”

  “Right. So?”

  “So? What do you mean, so?”

  “So what’s that have to do with me rammin’ the guy’s kidney?”

  “James, come on, put it together. All your prayers—your unanswered prayers. All the times you had no one to come to your defense. And what have you wanted out of life? To be a soldier, to be a policeman. To belong to a military organization. To belong to a paramilitary organization. Put it together, come on, man! Yes?”

  “I guess there’s somethin’ I’m just not pickin’ up on here, I don’t know.”

  “James, a very smart man once wrote that if you have a bulldozer, you don’t need faith to move a mountain. All you need to know is how to operate it. You don’t understand? You can’t see? You can’t connect that your time in the army, your time in the police, that what you were building was your own bulldozer? You don’t comprehend that?”

  “Well … you put it that way, yeah. Sure.”

  “What other way is there to put it, James, tell me.”

  “I don’t know. That’s as good as any. I guess.”

  “Stop guessing, James! It’s your career on the line here. It’s the job you’ve always wanted. It’s the eleventh month. Your boss has given me one more month. After that, if in my opinion, you still haven’t understood what you were doin’, you’re gone. I cannot, I will not, in good conscience recommend that you continue to be employed as a police officer. Whether you believe in luck or not, you are extremely lucky that that man didn’t die as a result of your unprovoked attack—”

  “Unprovoked?! Bullshit unprovoked! He was whackin’ that kid with a piece of rubber hose, that kid was in the hospital for a week!”

  “And his father was in surgery for three hours. And in intensive care for forty-eight hours. And his medical bills cost your employer’s insurance company a sizable pile of moolah, James. And the loss of his kidney cost that insurance company another sizable pile of moolah. Do you want to discuss how lucky you are to have a boss who’s on very good terms with the district attorney? Which district attorney chose not to prosecute you for aggravated assault? And how about the mysterious fact—dare we call it luck, huh?—that this story received almost no play in the local newspaper? To what do you attribute that, James, huh? A force of nature perhaps? Wanna explain that to me?”

  “Why you so pissed off? Why you—I mean, you’re yellin’ at me.”

  “Am I? Really? Maybe it’s because we’re running out of time here, James, and you can’t seem to comprehend that you are one lucky S-O-B. You committed a first-degree felony and all you got out of it was six months of administrative probation and twelve months yakkin’ it up with me once a week. The DA doesn’t prosecute you, your boss is on your side, he wants you to succeed, and I’m pullin teeth to get you to see the root of this tree which bore this illegitimate fruit, so you can keep doing what you’ve always wanted to do. And what do you do? You sit here and talk about how you wouldn’t allow yourself to be paralyzed with fear—by thinking wrong thoughts. We get right up on the thought process you were having at the exact moment you’re committing this first-degree felony and you back away from it as fast as your mental feet can move—and you ask me why I’m yelling? Tell me, James, why do you think I’m yelling?”

  “Guess you’re frustrated—”

  “Again with the guessing—of course I’m frustrated. Moses, Moses, burn this man a bush, maybe it will light up his mind!”

  “Uh, am I … am I that dense?”

  “No, James, you’re not dense. You’re just walking around denying a huge part of your emotional life. And if you don’t stop denying it, it’s going to bring you down, it’s going to take you away from the job you want, the life you want. Put it together, that’s all you have to do. Connect the dots. ’Cause if you can’t do that, you can’t have the life you want, it’s as simple as that. Other people, with a greater responsibility, will prevent you. They will put up roadblocks everywhere you turn. And if that happens, James, I don’t think you’ll be able to deal with it.”

  “Why’s that? What do you mean I won’t be able to deal with it?”

  “Because you give every indication that you’ve made no other plan. You act and think that because this is what you’ve wanted, and this is what you’ve got, then this is what you’re going to keep just because you want to keep it. And if others stop you—and they surely will if you don’t connect the dots here—I have serious reservations about how you’re going to react. And I will have to make those reservations public. You may think you have no other choice. But I really do not have another choice. So start connecting the dots, James. We’ve got four more sessions. Stop running from the reality you understand better than anybody else in this world. …”

  Reseta had brought a voice-activated tape recorder into his sessions with Stein. Normally, Stein would not have permitted himself to be recorded, but Reseta argued that he needed the tapes to write accurate summaries of the sessions for Balzic. He replayed them repeatedly while writing the summaries, and had also been replaying them at least once a year every year since October 1971, when his sessions had ended. He’d found out who, what, when, where, how, and why he was in those forty-eight hourlong sessions, and he’d been smart enough to know that if he listened carefully enough to Stein and to himself, he would know as much about himself as he could learn. When it came to himself, Stein had said to him in their last session, he was the smartest, coolest, most experienced, most observant person about James Reseta that anyone knew. What Stein had finally made him understand was that he had to stop playing footsie with himself. As long as he could summon up the will to tell himself the truth about himself, he’d be okay. He’d get to be the cop he’d always wanted to be, and to live the life he’d always wanted to live. But connecting those dots was a hump. A big one. One he almost hadn’t gotten over. And if it hadn’t been for Balzic and Stein, he wouldn’t have gotten over it. He had been lucky as hell. First, there was Jukey Johnson. Then Mario Balzic. And finally Abe Stein. How lucky does any man deserve to get in this life? Reseta asked the question over and over in the twenty-three years since his last session with Abe Stein. And the answer every time was damn lucky.…

  “Thirty? You 10-8 or what?”

  “Thirty here. Roger that.”

  “What’s your 10-20?”

  “I’m north on South Main, just passing the Rocksburg Foundry.”

  “Thirty, 10-91.”

  “Roger that.” Reseta turned to the channel that avoided the eavesdroppers. “What’s up, Vic?”

  “Where you been? How long’s it take you to get to juvey hall and back? Friggin’ car oughta be able to drive itself there.”

  “What, Smoley’s on strike again? You lose your kolbassi connection? You want me to go mediate?”

  “Very funny. Listen, the United Nations is goin’ apeshit again. Go back up Rayford.”

  “Where’s Canoza?”

  “Never mind where Canoza is, just go.”

  “Aw balls, man, I backed him up last night. And where was Canoza, huh? After everything cools out, that’s when he showed up.”

  “Just get there and back up Rayford, that’s all.”

  “Did he call fo
r backup?”

  “No. I’m readin’ his mind. Go back him up, capeesh?”

  “Hey, I know you think ’cause the pope’s a Polak it’s okay for you to try to talk Italian, but it’s not workin’, believe me. You can’t even pronounce that right.”

  “Just go—”

  “I’m goin, I’m goin’. Is it party time—hat and horns, or what?”

  “Just the lights, that’s all.”

  “And where am I goin’—Franklin or Jefferson?”

  “Jefferson. It’s the Russkies versus the Polaks. And don’t wake up Scavelli, alright? Rayford’s already had grief with him today.”

  “What’s this one about—dogs, trees, or parkin’ spaces?”

  “Who knows? Probably the full agenda—just get goin’, alright?”

  “These people, I’m tellin’ ya, they oughta all be in therapy.Should have their own group.”

  “Well maybe you should tell ’em that. And maybe they might request you personally to be their group leader. How close are you anyway—aren’t you finished with that yet? Thought you told me you were gonna be finished with that before Christmas.”

  “Nah, still six hours shy. Just the thesis, that’s all. Oh man, listen to me, just the thesis. Shit, me writin’ the thesis is like climbin’ a mountain with roller skates on. Hate writin’. It was due before Christmas, talked my adviser into lettin’ me put it off till the end of May, here it is the middle of April, I haven’t even started it, All I have is a briefcase full of index cards.”

  “Oh how the times they are a-changin’. I can remember when all you wanted to be was a cop.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “Well you don’t write that thing, get your master’s, that’s what’s gonna happen. And then you’re really gonna be a miserable prick.”

  “Your vote of confidence is duly noted, Mr. Dispatcher.”

  “Speakin’ of which, get movin’, Rayford’s callin’ me again.”

  “Oh for Christ sake, I have been movin’. Whatta you think—I gotta park to talk? I’m Canoza now?”

  AFTER RAYFORD finished the unusual incident report, he sat for a long time thinking about what he’d just learned about the Scavellis from Stramsky. And then a phrase started running through his mind: sometimes for a cop compassion is a terrible thing. Where had he heard that? Probably from Reseta. Had to be. Man, that Reseta. There was one complicated dude.

  Six years ago, when Rayford first joined the department, it took him no time at all to decide that Reseta was the coldest, most efficient grunt in the department. He was so cold, so efficient, some of the other guys called him Mussolini behind his back. And while there was no doubt that if you were headed into a nuisance bar you wanted Canoza beside you—or in front of you—there was also no doubt that when the truly sticky shit went down, the man you wanted beside you was Reseta. Reseta never got flustered, never forgot who he was or what he was doing or who he might have to be doing it to.

  Word was Reseta had seen real shit in Nam. He wasn’t one of those dudes mopping floors in the NCO clubs or driving a forklift around the supply bases. He had the medals to prove it. Not that he ever talked about them, but everybody knew he had a Purple Heart with two clusters, a Silver Star, and a Bronze Star. Even Carlucci, that squiggly little detective who’d seen enough of his own shit in Nam, told Rayford that Reseta had all the brains and all the gear to be chief. But for reasons Rayford had never managed to get out of anybody, Reseta, even though he’d passed the tests for sergeant, lieutenant, and captain, was still a patrolman.

  And he wouldn’t talk about that. Every time Rayford brought it up, all the times he’d asked Reseta for advice about how to prepare for the sergeant’s test, no matter what or how Reseta told him to study, when it sounded as though he might start talking about why he wasn’t a captain, lieutenant, or sergeant, he just wouldn’t. It was just not something Rayford could get him to talk about.

  Rayford couldn’t help thinking how weird that was, because he couldn’t wait to take the sergeant’s test, and when he found out he’d passed it, he couldn’t wait to order the stripes and have a tailor sew them on one shirt so he could wear it around his apartment and check himself out in all the mirrors even before he learned that he was actually going to receive the promotion. Which, three months later, he still hadn’t received.

  Fact was, fully half the patrolmen in the department had passed the sergeant’s test. And a third of those had passed the lieutenant’s test. But of those the only two who’d passed the captain’s test were Carlucci and Reseta, and Carlucci kept saying Reseta was the sharpest guy in the department. Even when Carlucci was acting chief, before Nowicki got the job permanently, Carlucci said repeatedly that Reseta was way better qualified than he was—and test scores didn’t have anything to do with it. Carlucci said it was because of the way Reseta sized up every situation, every incident. Carlucci said, “He prepares, man, that’s all there is to it. I swear he stays up nights dreamin’ up situations just so he can be ready for ’em when they happen. Prepares like nobody else. Always has, long as I’ve known him.”

  But, whether he prepared like nobody else or not, for reasons of his own Reseta hadn’t wanted any of the promotions, and certainly not the chief’s job. Not that it had been offered to him. Carlucci said the offer and the acceptance were both political and that was the one area where Reseta seemed weak. Seemed, Carlucci had emphasized, because he wasn’t really sure that if Reseta hadn’t made up his mind to be chief he couldn’t have been as political as the job required, because he certainly had the mind and the character to learn how. “God knows,” Carlucci said, “I don’t have it.”

  But Rayford always had the feeling there was something else chewing on Reseta. He didn’t know what, but something had changed in Reseta since 1993 when Rayford had come into the department. Something had happened. Even though there was a lot of talk about it when Reseta wasn’t around, the talk was nothing but speculation. It was a particular incident, it wasn’t a particular incident, it was the whole thing just wearing him down, it was him going to college two, three times a week, juggling his watches to match his class schedules, finally getting his B.S. in criminal science after fourteen years of night and Saturday morning classes. Then, without a word to anybody, he changed directions and started a master’s program in psychology.

  Weight-room talk was that nobody could keep that up for twenty-five years, that kind of intensity, staying in shape physically, keeping up with all the changes in the law, never losing your cool on the street. But more and more guys started asking Rayford if he was noticing that Reseta seemed to be running on empty—or running on caffeine. Weight-roomers got silly one day and voted him the Last Guy You Wanted Spotting for You in the Bench Press. Printed up a sign and hung it on the back wall of the john stall. Hung there for nearly a week before Reseta found it. They could hear him tearing it up and flushing it. He came out of the stall and never said a word. Just started his lifting circuit, like he’d done every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for twenty-five years.

  But Rayford couldn’t help noticing it, mostly when they were running together, because that’s when they talked. Or rather Rayford talked. He was under the impression that they could talk about anything and everything, but when he thought back about those conversations, he saw they were all one-sided. It was him talking out his problems, his collars, his patrols, his wife, his mother-in-law, his girlfriends, whether he should finish the B.S. he’d started in the air force. If Reseta said anything it was only to talk about what Rayford was talking about. Rayford hadn’t realized how one-sided their conversations were until the other guys started on him about whether he was noticing how edgy Reseta was getting lately.

  Patrolman Larry Fischetti came to Rayford and asked him straight out if he’d noticed any change.

  “Why you askin’ me, man?”

  “’Cause you’re always with him.”

  “Always with him? Whachu talkin’ about?”

  “You r
un with him, you lift with him.”

  “That’s always to you? That’s maybe an hour and a half a week runnin’, maybe three hours a week liftin’. Four at the most.”

  “That’s what I’m sayin’. That’s a lotta time to spend with one guy. You’re not noticin’ anything?”

  “Noticin’ like what?”

  “Hey. Last week, he backed me up in a domestic. Guy had a knife, fillet knife, you know, for fish? Bonin’ knife? Eight inches at least. It’s dark, 2100, and here he comes, Reseta, outta the car with his hands empty. No flash, no baton. And he won’t draw his piece. Just starts talking to the guy.”

  “So? Did he cool him out or what?”

  “Yeah. Eventually. But that ain’t my point.”

  “Which is what? Cooled the guy out, didn’t he? What’d you want him to do, shoot him, bust his skull, keep shinin’ his flash in the dude’s eyes till he went blind or what?”

  “Hey, Rayford, first fuckin’ rule, which you know as well as me, you come outta the MU with all the necessaries, you don’t come outta there sayin’, hey idiot, wait a second, I forgot my MagLite, can’t see what the fuck I’m doin’ here, don’t move till I go get it.”

  Rayford couldn’t argue with that. Coming out of an MU with your baton and your flash at night should’ve been as automatic as breathing. All Rayford could do was shrug and say, sure, he ran with Reseta, he lifted with him, they backed each other up when the occasions arose, but he really couldn’t say he knew Reseta any better than anybody else. He also pointed out there were weeks when Reseta was the same old organized, competent, confident Reseta again, cleaned and polished, in such good shape from running and lifting that during his annual physical his body fat content was in single digits. “And the only other motherfucker in this department can make that claim is me,” Rayford said.

  When they caught the same watches, Rayford and Reseta not only ran together and spotted for each other in the weight room, they also paired up in self-defense classes. That was when Rayford gained the most respect for Reseta, who, though he was nearly twenty years older, regularly and routinely handled Rayford with ease no matter what they were practicing: takedowns, come-alongs, edge encounters, gun encounters. Reseta was just enough quicker and just enough stronger to show Rayford that he was nobody to fool with physically, no matter what might be going on in his mind.