by Derek Blass
Although it wasn't all Tyler's fault, Shaver thought. Soon after Tyler took his position in the room, Shaver heard a bang and an artificial sun lit the front of the house. Shaver's ears rang and he soon inhaled the fumes of a flashbang. The side door burst open. Shaver remembered seeing black silhouettes pouring into his house. He pulled the trigger on his assault rifle and felt it recoil into his shoulder as it pumped out rounds. Bullets tore through men, splashing blood on walls as limbs exploded. The still night just outside the door swallowed bullets that missed their mark.
The first gunshot that hit him came from some sort of handgun. It shattered his left forearm, exited, bounced on the floor and ricocheted into his left shin. He continued to fire the assault rifle, trying to rotate to his right. That's when he felt the next bullet enter his body. This one was clean, quiet, into his right midsection. Shaver couldn't decide whether the bullet or the surprise of where it came from was more alarming. That bullet slid through ribs and punctured his right lung before coming to a rest in the inner sanctum of his body. Doctors said he was lucky that one didn't do the job. He told them it was a fucking shame it didn't. Next thing he remembered, he was toppled over on his front porch.
He spent a month in the ICU, although it was hard to tell time. There was nothing to distinguish the passing days. Today was a visit back to his doctor for a checkup of his wounds. Doctor called him bionic.
The squad car wound its way through the city. They passed vivid memories, places Shaver tried to lock in his mind. He figured he'd never see them again. His favorite Chinese restaurant polluting almost a whole block with its pungent food. The cigar lounge, where he'd spent hours upon hours with other cops. Every speck of matter in that place touched by cigar smoke. Rolling a Maduro in his fingers before sliding the tightly rolled cigar into his wet mouth. It was more painful than the wounds to his body—knowing this was it. His last view of the world. Forty-two years in this world soon to be gone, never touched or seen again. A shitty friend, but one he'd miss nonetheless.
“If you turn to the right here, you'll cut off five minutes.”
“All right, Sarge,” the officer responded mechanically. It was a lie though, and they both knew it. A right would add ten minutes to the trip. A small consolation for a dead man.
* * * *
Martinez sat alone in his living room. The television was on, but muted. He watched the news, making up his own headlines and reports in his head. That inner voice set up reports, bantered between newscasters, threw in the ubiquitous, “That's a great story.” Mournful voice for the stories involving violence against women and children. Resentful voice for the local robber. Happy voice for the one story in twenty dealing with something positive. Mournful, resentful, happy...lather, rinse, repeat.
Carmen was out shopping for food. Her resolve and toughness came through since the mess with Shaver ended. She was already leading the charge with Cruz to investigate further into Shaver and the Chief. He, on the other hand, was crippled since then. Hated to admit it, but emotionally crippled. The loss of Williams finally surged from the recesses of his consciousness to terrorize him on a daily basis. His retinas burned with the image of Alicia's chest exploding.
Someone pulled up into the driveway. He struggled to push himself up off of the chair. No part of his body was unscathed from injury. His cradled his left arm in a sling. Little pockets of pain manifested every few hours and then went away, mortal reminders. Cruz and Sandra were getting out of their car. Martinez popped the door open and went back to his chair, gently took a seat, and shifted around until his body parts were comfortably placed in the chair's crevices.
“Hello?” he heard Cruz ask from the doorway.
“Yeah, in here.” The door creaked open as Cruz entered.
“Damn, Martinez, you want a light on or something? Martinez just shook his head. Sandra came over to him and gave him a peck on his left cheek. Cruz approached and they did the shake-to-thumb-grasp-to-fist-punch handshake.
“Where's Carmen?” Sandra asked.
“She just went to the grocery.” They sat in the wake of Martinez's brief answers.
“Martinez, you're gonna have to snap out of this,” Cruz said.
“Why?”
“We need you.”
Martinez flashed a look of disdain at them and asked, “What for now?”
“You know what's going on. We need to put Shaver away for good.”
“Look, I've done my job, protecting that video. The district attorney's got it now. It's their job to build a case.”
“But we've...”
“And I'm not goin' on some crazy winter adventure with you to find out about his past. He'll stand trial for what he did recently, that's good enough for me.”
“Come on Martinez. Reports are surfacing from all over the city that the depth of Shaver and the Chief's collective crimes run very, very deep. I get people calling me all the time to give me their Shaver abuse reports.”
“You know what? The truth is that everyday things like this happen. Have you ever stopped to imagine the number of cops around this country? Fact of the matter is that people get beat and taken advantage of by cops all the damn time. At least in this case they were caught. So, I don't know what the hell else you want from me. I'm not a lawyer, the case is over for me.”
“There's proof that Shaver has been involved in several beatings of minorities, Martinez. For years this guy preyed on our community. We need someone like you who knows the city, who has contacts and informants throughout the city to help us.” Martinez gave Cruz a cross look. “Plus, wasn't your whole purpose in protecting the video to make sure it would get disclosed to avenge your partner's death?”
The recent struggles and Martinez's constant pain made him close off. He recognized it and changed his tone. “You can't play the race card on a minority.”
“I just did.”
“Dammit,” Martinez muttered. “I'm all screwed up right now so I can't help right away.”
Sandra smiled at him and said, “I knew you'd help.”
T H I R T Y
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Shaver sat in his cell, the “rubber room” as it was called. The rubber room was normally reserved for loons or inmates on death watch. Putting Shaver in it was a favor from his fellow cops. If they put him in with the rest of the population, with men he'd put away himself, they all knew what would happen.
The rubber room was eight-feet wide by eight-feet high by twelve-feet long. The walls weren't actually bouncy and they didn't have much give. Instead, they were coated with a rubber-like substance that took away sharp edges or rough surfaces. Shaver lay on his bunk. The mattress was hardly better than the cold floor. To his right were a small toilet and a mirror set back in protective plastic.
The weight of the future was slowly settling on his shoulders. Of all the emotions he ever felt—few in his life—this grief was certainly the strongest. It was completely unrelated to the old man he killed. Instead, it was the claustrophobia of confinement and the darkness that filled him when he thought about the rest of his life like this. No, it wasn't about the old man, Shaver thought to himself.
Killing was of no import. The first time he did it was twenty-two years earlier. He grew up in a small, rural town several hours from anything that could be called a city or even civilization. He remembered that as he grew up, more and more of the Mexicans showed up each year. They came for certain seasons, taking farming jobs from his family and friends. They were like brown locusts.
There came a point when none of the town's residents were hired for the seasonal farming jobs. When they accosted the local farmers for hiring Mexicans, the farmers responded that the Mexicans were willing to work for ten cents on the dollar and they would do the jobs townsfolk wouldn't. It didn't take much time after that for the town's hatred to flare up.
Shaver remembered that it was a peaceful, late-summer day when the attack began. The Mexican workers were out in the
fields, as they were every day during this season. A faint murmur grew from the country store in the middle of the town. It spread from store to store and then house to house. Soon most of the residents were gathered in front of the country store. A tall, lean man named Alan stood on the top step of the store. Alan owned the adjacent farm tool store. He kept pushing his glasses up the wet bridge of his nose, shouting to the crowd.
“For years we've let this inferior race invade our town and take our jobs! Now, all of the land around us is infested with these wetbacks!” The loosely assembled crowd of white faces booed. Some held shovels, others rakes. Most were weaponless. Shaver remembered feeling in his pocket and palming the four-inch switchblade that he always carried.
“It's time we take this town back!” Alan continued to yell. People in the crowd cheered and pumped their fists in the air. It was just talk at this point, a group of small-town people angry about the operation of free market capitalism. That all changed when Todd White, Shaver's neighbor, screamed, “Les go git 'em then!” The crowd collectively weighed this proposition—the change from talk to action. Mere words to physical confrontation. In this split second, the crowd tipped toward action and started to move to the fields with another cheer.
Shaver enjoyed imagining how those Mexicans must have felt as they heard the crowd's rumble and shouting grow closer. Slowly, they must have stopped their work, looking at each other while trying to figure out what they were hearing. Hoping it wasn't what it sounded like, but fearfully straining their ears. Then they must have seen the crowd churn over the hill that fronted the fields. Shaver recalled seeing one or two of the Mexicans start to run away into the growth behind the fields. Others were slower to react.
The crowd went from a fast walk to an all-out run. The workers nearest the crowd turned and attempted to run but were quickly engulfed. This was the first time Shaver heard the dull thump of a shovel caving in someone's head. Small pockets of violence developed and wrapped around Mexican men and women of varying ages like the devastating embrace of an octopus. As Shaver looked around he remembered seeing a figure crouched just beyond the field, about two hundred feet away. He charged and let out a yell.
She popped up out of the growth and stumbled on heavy feet. Shaver laughed and sprinted the last few feet until he was on top of her, smothering her and putting his face next to hers. He breathed heavily into her ear as he caught his breath. She squirmed and whimpered under him. She clawed at the ground in a futile attempt to escape.
“You ain't getting away from me.” He pulled his knife from his pocket and flipped it open. “See this?” he asked as he put it on her lips. “I'm gonna make you hurt.” He slid the blade to her cheek and pressed down enough to barely cut her skin. Then he grabbed a handful of her dress with his other hand and lifted it to her waist.
“Fucking dirty, aren't you?” The girl kicked him with her heel and squirmed some more but she wasn't going anywhere. Shaver looked down and put his hand in between her legs. When she screamed he pressed the knife to her neck until she shut up. “I'm gonna kill you so shut the fuck up!” Shaver grabbed the top of the girl's panties and pulled them down to reveal the left side of her butt. Her skin goose-bumped, sending Shaver's raging hormones into a frenzy. He used his free hand to unbuckle his pants. That's when he heard a rustle in the growth to his side and felt a kick into his right ribs. The force of the kick rolled him off of the girl and onto his back where he struggled for air. He saw the girl run farther into the growth with her dress still hiked up on one side of her waist.
A man's shadow covered Shaver and blocked out the sun. He clearly remembered the man's fatherly face, infused with rage, more than ready to kill Shaver. The man put his hand on Shaver's chest and punched him on the side of his face. The blow stunned Shaver and filled his mouth with the taste of blood. As the man reached up to punch him again, Shaver lifted his knife. The man could not stop his arm's momentum and his fist surged down on the knife. He screamed out as the knife embedded between two of his knuckles.
Shaver caught his breath and pounced on the wounded man. The knife slid neatly out of the man's bloody fingers.
“Déjenos en paz, cobarde!”
Shaver smiled a yellow-toothed grin and danced the knife across the man's neck. Blood flowed from the wound. The man coughed on the flood in his mouth and vomited blood vertically in a spray all over Shaver's face. Shaver didn't flinch. His face bore the same smile.
Hooting and hollering came up behind the two. Shaver watched as the man's arm fell to the ground. Probably wasn't the loss of blood, Shaver thought to himself. Must've been drowning.
The noise drew closer. Shaver wiped off his face and put his blade back into his pocket. He stepped back from the body, working to imprint the image in his mind. Someone tapped him on the shoulder.
“Shaver?”
He turned around to a group of three townies. Their smiles disappeared when they saw his face and clothes.
“Well, fuck, Shaver...what'dja do back here?” Shaver said nothing as he pushed through the middle of the group and walked back into town.
Shaver rolled onto his other side as he lay daydreaming about that day. The piece of loosely sewn cloth called his mattress did nothing to soften the bed frame's steel coils. Despite what it seemed, the killing wasn't about race. He didn't mind wiping some filth out of of the world every now and again, but the thrill was the control. Ending something that took so long to nourish and grow. And then the reactions. That was key too. Shocked, pissed, literally scared shitless.
So no, it wasn't about killing the old man. It was the claustrophobia.
T H I R T Y-O N E
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Mason West. He kind of looked like his name. Copperish brown hair. Thick and without a hint of thinning. Always perfectly combed, dry, to the side. A warm, bushy mustache. The husky, Selleck thickness men envy. His face was solid, wide, with few but well-placed angles. Mason West was the county's district attorney. That was a relatively prominent job in a county of over half a million people.
Mason knew he wanted to be a lawyer when other options ran out. He toyed with writing but never seriously enough. A short stint in construction was enough to make him study harder in school. Working for a nonprofit—or for free—never appealed to his ambitions. So he went to law school after taking a year to travel around the States. People asked him why he didn't go somewhere more exotic, and he never had a good answer.
He coasted through law school, pushing the right buttons at approximately the right time to get through. It wasn't until a trial advocacy class that he awoke from the stupor. CN: 4076 “Trial Advocacy: Becoming a DA or a PD.” He remembers some snotty classmates chuckling, “You don't become a DA or a PD. You have to be born one.” Mason always appreciated the fact that he wasn't born a lawyer.
He spent most of his time drafting and performing mock direct and cross examinations, openings and closings. Something noticeable started to develop in him. Interest, passion. More and more often he planted himself in front of a fantasy jury, comprised of two well-worn couch pillows, his favorite dish, a potted plant named Horatio (often the most difficult juror to sway), a baseball card of Aaron Boone and his dog, Simon. That, believe it or not, is where Mason started flourishing.
He began reading books on constructing arguments. He scoured through McElhaney on everything. Tuesday and Thursday mornings he went to the state district court and watched the docket churn through Courtroom 11. Classmates in the trial advocacy class began to show him their arguments, asking for his thoughts. His professor awoke from his open-eyed nap when Mason began his opening statements. Five months after starting the class, Mason won the state mock trial competition and received the American Jurisprudence award in his trial advocacy class.
Upon graduation, Mason faced a difficult prospect—lawyers hardly ever go to court anymore. The days of trying a case were washed away by enormous judgments. Astronomical billing rates for attorneys
didn't help either. He knew he'd rather be a janitor than languish in some back room of a stuffy law firm. Facing that reality, he had one of two options. Become a district attorney or a public defender.
There should be no confusion. Those in either camp agree on one thing, and one thing only—one can't be the other. There's nothing so reviling to a public defender as to suggest he or she could be a district attorney. Visa versa. It's a distinction based upon principle, way of life, manner of dressing, patterns of thought, and just about any other human characteristic or tendency imaginable. Yet, Mason found himself wavering between the two until he had a conversation with his professor.
“Where do you stand on capital punishment?”
“Appropriate in some circumstances,” Mason answered.
“That's that then.”
So it was settled. For no self-respecting public defender would ever think, let alone admit, that he or she was amenable to the death penalty.
Mason applied for a job as a first-year district attorney. He met with the county's district attorney in a relatively dingy office. Mason sat attentively across the desk as the district attorney pelted him with probing questions. Questions that went beyond the “what-are-your-qualifications” interview questions. More into the realm of what constitutes you and does that parallel our mission. After two hours of scrutiny, the district attorney bid Mason goodbye.
Mason muddled for the next sixteen days. He saw the district attorney once at a function in that timespan. The district attorney shook his hand as if the two hadn't met before and walked away to get a drink. Some other interviews popped up. One with a law firm that practiced family law. The thought of dealing with infantile adults was unappealing.
Another interview was with a prestigious, national law firm. He remembered looking around at the interviewers, four of them in total, in dark suits with recently pressed, highly starched shirts and power ties. The attorneys told him he would get a much better salary at their firm than as a district attorney, and would even get some court time. They asked him questions about his past, what he expected from himself in the future, and to describe his greatest weakness in painstaking detail. This was his second such interview with a firm of this caliber, and both times it felt like he was interviewing with morticians.