“Bye, Vicki—good luck with the rock lady.”
Vicki harrumphed and ended the call.
After a quick pat down of her unwashed hair—why didn’t she take a shower first?—and a swipe of lip gloss, Natalie got out of the car and walked up to the building. Like most schools these days, the front entrance consisted of a set of two double doors, the outer ones locked. A security camera stared down at her from above the doors. A square intercom sat to the right, screwed into the brick wall under the office windows. She pressed the call button and waited. The thing went brrrrinng, brrrring, but no one answered. By now the secretary, or even JD sometimes, answered with, “Name and purpose of your visit please.”
“What in the…” Natalie stepped closer and peered through the office windows. Her stomach knotted. She felt like puking up her cinnamon rolls. There was JD, his arms around Gwen. “Oh my God.”
JD looked up just then, caught her gaze, and pushed Gwen away. By the time he’d made it outside, Natalie was halfway to her car.
“Nat, stop!” he called. “It’s not what it looks like.”
“That’s the best you can do—that cliché of an excuse?”
He caught her elbow and yanked her toward him.
“Nat, you have to come inside. We have a situation…or a possible one anyway.”
“You’re damn right we do, and her name’s Gwen Beasley.” She struggled to free herself, but he had hold of both her arms now. He wasn’t hurting her, and she might have enjoyed his insistent touch, but not after he’d held Gwen just seconds before. “Let me go!”
“No!” His voice boomed, and she jumped, startled. JD had never raised his voice to her like that before. “Natalie, I am not messing around with Gwen. We have a possible shooter somewhere in the vicinity. Mike called me while I was driving—it sounded like he had a gun and was planning to use it. But, the call wasn’t clear. We got cut off, and I have no idea where he is or what his intentions are. I’ve alerted the police, but they’re tied up with a big wreck. Idiot Gwen wouldn’t answer the phone, so we don’t have the building locked down yet. We can’t stay out here in the parking lot. Come on, we’ve got to get you inside—we’re pretty sure he’s not in the school, so that’s the safest place you can be right now.”
“Oh…okay.” She couldn’t think of anything less lame to say, so she let JD pull her back across the parking lot and into the school. He had to be telling the truth. JD didn’t joke about things like that.
Once they got inside the office, she could hear a loud gasping for breath. Gwen sat in on the loveseat where students usually waited to go into JD’s dungeon when they were in trouble. She was breathing into a paper bag. Hyperventilating. Natalie looked to JD, who rolled his eyes and waved a dismissive hand at her.
“I’m going to try calling the police again…wait a minute.” He stared out the office window just before the brrringg, brrringg of the intercom sounded. He ran around to the other side of the desk and leaned down. “Charlie, is that you? Where’s Mike?”
“I don’t know—that’s why I’m here. Can you let me in?”
“All right.”
The door lock clicked. A few seconds later, Charlie Byrne stepped into the office, wearing JD’s suit and jacket again, like she had seen him wearing at the halfway house. But his hair looked greasy, and a few days’ worth of stubble darkened his face. She caught a whiff of cigarettes and alcohol.
JD ran back around the desk to meet him. “Do you know where Mike could be at all? I got a call from him, and it didn’t sound good.”
Charlie’s eyes darted from JD to Gwen to Natalie and back again. “I don’t know where my boy is—figured you’d know better. You’re like his daddy now, ain’t you?”
“No, that’s ridiculous. Now where do you think he—?”
Charlie the Spoon whipped a gun from under his coat and pointed right at JD’s chest. Gwen’s hyperventilating revved up again, and one of Natalie’s worst nightmares was about to come true. Her husband would probably die before she could say “I love you” one last time.
Chapter 13
JD didn’t know much about guns. He only knew it was a pistol and it was pointed at him and this was a principal’s greatest fear these days, one slot ahead of getting crushed when a pile of paperwork falls on your head.
“So this is about me,” JD said. “Let everyone else go. Let’s go outside and talk.”
“Not happening.” Charlie Byrne turned his attention to Gwen, who was still gasping. He waved the pistol. “Yo, bitch, cut that the fuck out. Both you women get on the floor. Face down.”
Gwen didn’t budge. She was busy making noises like “hee-hee-hee” and seeing how wide she could open her eyes.
Natalie stepped over to her and smacked her lightly on the cheek. Gwen looked up like Bambi in headlights, settling into deep gasps. “Get on the floor, you stupid bimbo.”
“Huh?” Gwen couldn’t get her eyes any wider, so they started tearing instead.
JD backed slowly to Gwen, grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the chair, giving her a gentle shove to her belly. He signaled to Nat with his eyes, and she got down too.
“Look, Charlie, you don’t need a gun to talk about this with me. I came to you first, remember? Most people don’t use guns on parent-teacher night.” He tried to smile.
Charlie raised the gun and leveled it at his head, turning it sideways like in a gang movie. “Big job, big college degree, yeah, man, you got it all. Mike’s smart like you, not dumb like me. But this…” He brandished the gun. “This is the equalizer, right? If I want it, you’ll be gone and take your smart remarks and hand-me-down suits with you.”
“Well, actually, I was going to wear that jacket again, so it’s not really a hand-me-down.” JD tried his weekend smile, the relaxed one he used to have all the time before he became a principal.
It didn’t work. Charlie waved the gun. “You arguing with me?”
“I didn’t mean to, Charlie. I’m just saying it’s not as bad as you think it is. No disrespect to you was intended, ever. It was the other way around. I wanted to show you respect when other people weren’t. You know?”
“You wanted to take over being dad to Mike and you were just letting me know you were doing it. Right, Mr. Big Shot?”
“My husband wouldn’t do that,” Natalie said, looking up slightly.
On the floor beside her, JD saw lots of scuffmarks from Gwen’s ridiculously tall heels. He could smell Gwen’s sweat mixed with Chanel No. 5, so he could only imagine what Natalie must be smelling down there. She glared at the hysterical secretary like she wanted to grab the hair on the back of Gwen’s head and squish her nose into the floor, if they lived long enough.
JD refocused on the man with the gun. He tried to use his best voice of reason, the one that persuaded kids to stop loitering in the hallway without yelling at them. “You know, Charlie, I didn’t want to be Mike’s dad. I just wanted him to have a dad. That’s why I came to you.”
The voice of reason wasn’t working. Charlie wasn’t rational. He weighed the gun in his hand. There was a reek of beer coming off the coat. Gwen began to go “hee-hee-hee” again.
Charlie said, “I have six bullets. That’s all I could get. Look. There’s three of you, and me, and… And Mike.” He flared. “And you’re first, bitch, if you don’t goddamn shut up!” He took two steps closer to Gwen.
“She’s just scared,” Natalie called from the floor. “Haven’t you ever been scared? You must have been before you got clean. I bet you were scared for you and your son.”
JD didn’t know where her courage was coming from. No. No, he did. It was coming from that same strength that kept her going after John Allen died, the strength he so admired and would give his own life to protect if he had to.
The gunman stood bulging-eyed over Gwen. She begged with gasping breaths, “I-don’t-want-to-die.”
“Nobody wants to die, man,” JD said. “Seriously, Charlie. Nobody wants to die. You don’t want to die. You don’t wan
t to kill anyone. You just want us to…” He stopped to think. “You want us to know you care. You love Mike. You want to be a good man. Right?”
Charlie burst out, “Don’t you get it? I have the power now! I have the gun! Talking smart doesn’t help now! You can start counting the minutes you have left to draw air into your lungs.”
“Um…” JD looked around the office to find something that might help, trying to buy time with whatever excuses he could rattle off. “Um, that kind of sucks, Charlie. If I made a list of things that suck, this would be pretty much at the top. I thought the football team’s losing record sucked, but I think I love that now. You know?”
Charlie lowered the gun a little. “What? I told you I’m gonna kill you, and you’re talking about the fucking football team?”
JD flicked his eyes toward Gwen’s desk, then to Natalie and back. Their eyes met. She understood. There was an alarm button on the wall right behind that desk.
“I’d like a sip of water,” JD told Charlie. “Before I die. Obviously I’m not getting a plate of enchiladas for my last meal, but some water seems fair, right? Would you like some too, Charlie?”
Charlie the Spoon tightened his grip on the gun. “You go nowhere.”
“Let me get the water,” Natalie suggested. “Gwen keeps a water bottle in her drawer, right, JD?”
“Sure does.” JD tried his weekend smile again. “At the moment, I wish it was a vodka bottle, but it’s just Aquafina. Tell me I’m right, Gwen.”
“Huh?” Gwen peeped.
“Tell me I’m right.”
“Heep.”
“She says I’m right, Charlie. Okay, Nat’s going to get up slowly. She’s too smart to do something stupid like rush at you; I know that. You just keep your eyes and your gun pointed at me, okay?”
“I’m not stupid,” said Charlie. “I know you’re up to something.”
“I want to save all our lives, so yeah, I’m trying whatever I can. Right now, I’m trying to get some water. Let Nat get us some water.”
“Oh, fuck, go ahead. Enjoy spending the rest of your very short life drinking warm water.” Charlie crashed into a spinning chair at a desk that was occupied mainly by piles of expired IEPs no one ever remembered to shred.
Natalie rose slowly. She kept her eyes on Charlie. He gave her a wan look. The gun was low, but still pointed at JD. She stepped over to the desk.
“Now,” JD said, “while we wait for the water, let’s talk about a way out of this, where you don’t kill anyone. Can we talk about that? I want to…” He paused, paralyzed by something that he never thought he would have to do. “Okay, I want to show you a picture. I have a picture in my wallet here. Let me show you the picture, Charlie.”
Natalie made it to the desk, sat in Gwen’s chair. She pulled open the drawer. JD really didn’t know whether Gwen kept water under all the fashion magazines. Hopefully, Natalie wouldn’t mention it if she didn’t find any.
JD pulled his wallet out and rifled through it. He extracted a photo and offered it to Charlie. The gunman squinted at it, but didn’t take it.
While Charlie was distracted, Natalie pushed the alarm.
Boop. Boop. Boop. It was the school fire bell.
“What the fuck?” Charlie sprang from the chair, waving the gun wildly at JD’s feet, his legs, his chest.
“Look at the picture, Charlie.” JD stood firm. Though his hand shook like crazy, he held the picture right in front of Charlie’s roving eyes. “Look at it. That’s my wife, and that’s John Allen, our son who was stillborn. I didn't have the chance to watch my son grow up, to tell him how proud I am of him. You still have that chance. Don't destroy it. Be the daddy I never got to be.”
Charlie lowered the gun.
“I’ll help you, man,” JD said. “That’s what I do. I help. My son died, and I couldn’t do anything about it. I don’t want that anymore.”
“You guys had a baby die?” Gwen said weakly from the floor. “That’s why you broke up? Oh, shit. I didn’t know that. I never would’ve…”
“Yes, you would’ve,” Natalie said.
Voices echoed from the hallway. Children were headed for the front exit.
“Listen to them,” JD insisted. “They’re full of life. My son isn’t. I don’t have a son. You do. Goddamn it, Charlie, be his dad!”
Charlie winced, crunching over like he’d been stabbed. He suddenly stood up straight and jabbed the barrel of the gun right against JD’s forehead. JD froze. Natalie screamed. Charlie’s arm trembled, then went limp and fell to his side. The gun clattered to the floor. JD tried to kick it across the room, but his aim was off and it got stuck on the leg of another desk.
“It… It’s not loaded,” Charlie said, choking on sobs he fought to hold back. “It doesn’t even fucking work right.” Tears lit up his cheeks. He sniffled. “You’d think I could at least get a gun that works. Man, I can’t do nothing right.”
The breath JD had been holding came out in a whoosh. His legs felt so numb, he wanted to fall onto the floor and lie there for a while. But, he didn’t. He staggered to Charlie and put an arm around his shoulders. After a moment, Natalie came over and joined him on the other side.
It felt weird comforting the man who sort-of-almost tried to kill them. But, it also felt right.
A moment later, the door banged open as Gwen, trying to make her escape, instead crashed into the arms of two officers. She bounced off one of them and fell into the chair Charlie had vacated. Vice Principal Knowles, all bulky and hard-faced, stood in the hall beyond them. He had his hand around the arm of a boy. “Go ahead, kid,” he said.
Mike Byrne rushed into the room, dodging around the officers, to his father.
“Dad!” he shouted. “Jesus fucking Christ, what were you doing?”
“Well, if it’s not Charlie the Spoon. You’re in deep shit now,” said one of the cops. JD glanced at his name badge: Sergeant Rogers.
JD thought quickly. The relief in his stomach, at being out of danger, was so strong that he felt like he was flying. He had to yell over the insistent boop, boop of the fire alarm. “Actually, Sergeant, it turns out that Charlie was a hero. You see, he… uh. He found this gun under Jansen Bridge and wanted to surrender it to you, but he was…”
“He was afraid if he was seen with it you guys would say he was violating his parole,” added Natalie. “He thought maybe Principal West could turn it in for him.”
“You called dispatch and reported a potential shooter. And what’s with the alarm?”
“We are so sorry, officers,” JD said. “It was all a huge misunderstanding. Everyone’s touchy these days when a gun’s involved, you know? I guess we reacted before we understood what was happening.”
“Tell it to the judge,” said Rogers, ripping handcuffs from his belt.
“It’s true,” said JD. “Remember that holdup at the liquor store last week over on James Street?”
The sergeant paused, handcuffs swinging in midair. “Yeah…?”
“You never found the weapon—at least that’s what I heard in the news.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, so that might be the gun. The witnesses saw a handgun, right? That’s why you wanted to turn it in, wasn’t it, Charlie?”
Charlie glanced at JD, then the officer, and finally nodded.
Mike Byrne chimed in, also fast on his feet. “So when you told me about the gun, Dad, you were just trying to impress me?”
“Yeah, Mike.” He wiped his tears with the back of his hand. “I was pretty stupid.”
The two of them, and JD, and then Natalie, all beamed their best smiles at the police.
“It ain’t loaded,” Charlie added. “I just wanted to be a hero in front of my son.”
“So that’s how it went down, huh?” The sergeant lifted his hat and scratched his buzz-cut head.
“This shit ain’t funny,” said the second officer, whose badge read McNally.
“Nothing surprises me anymore.” Sergeant Rogers sighed
, putting his hat back on. “Remember that time we caught the guy breaking into Ruthie’s Country Kitchen, and he said he was gonna switch the salt and the sugar in the shakers as a prank?”
“Oh, yeah, him. And the lady who said she had an extra tit growing on her back and we should check to be sure?”
“Shame that one didn’t pan out. That lady was a meth-head if I’ve ever seen one. I’m going to need all of you to come down to the station house and make a statement.”
"Just routine, you understand," McNally added. He reached for Gwen's hand to help her to her feet, and when he got a good look at her, his eyes widened. "Hey, I know you. From high school. You're… uh… starts with a G."
"Gwen Beasley."
"Yeah, head cheerleader, right? You used to date my best friend Dave."
Gwen was still shaky. "How is Dave?"
"Back at the station, I'll get you some coffee and fill you in. I'm Randy."
"Okay." Gwen smiled.
As the Byrnes were walking to the squad car, Charlie put his arm around his son and said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I ain’t been no good. But things are gonna change.” He pulled his son to him and kissed him on the head.
“It’s OK—you’re my dad,” said Mike. “No matter what. But, you gotta get a shower, man. You’re ripe!”
“Back at ya, son.”
JD drove Natalie in his SUV, following the police. They held hands the whole way. Natalie rested her head on JD’s shoulder. He kissed her hair.
“Stay with me tonight,” she told him simply.
“Love to. And tomorrow night?”
“Chances are,” Natalie replied, “you can stay forever.”
Chapter 14
Natalie put her palm over the phone’s speaker. “Honey, is the turkey burning?”
JD unglued his eyes from the fifth showing of the “A Christmas Story” marathon and sniffed the air. “Crap!” He ran to the kitchen, grabbed a towel and yanked open the oven door. Black smoke billowed from inside. The exhaust fan sucked up most of it. The rest found its way to the smoke alarm and set it off.
Natalie laughed as JD frantically waved the towel in front of the screaming device. She stepped outside onto the porch so she could hear her mom on the other end of the line. Snowflakes as big as goose feathers fell on the drive, the mailbox, and the young pear tree they had planted in place of the For Sale sign.
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