I was still breathing but other than that, scarcely alive.
I got up each day and walked around. Ate, slept, worked, then back to bed and up the next day to do it again.
It was grim. A hamster on a wheel. No exit. No relief. Just another twenty-four hours to kill; another stone to roll.
“Why are you alive, Bret?” a voice asked inside me.
My face stared back dumbly from the mirror.
I'm just a waste of space and air. I hate myself. I wish I were dead.
“It’s nearly eight—you’re going to be late.”
The sound of my wife’s voice pulled me back into the room.
Next time, I’ll go further. I promised myself.
The man n the mirror blinked like a fish out of water. His mouth puckered and blew tiny bubbles.
I should have killed you when I had the chance, I growled.
I put the razor back into the medicine cabinet.
“Coming,” I called down. Lily was waiting at the foot of the stairs with my coat.
“Your lunch is packed—looks like rain.”
I hated taking a brown bag lunch but didn't want to hurt her feelings.
She still thinks I’m working the desk.
I wanted to protest, but caught myself. What does it matter—in the grand scheme of things, what does it frickin’ matter?
Her eyes were huge and blue—childlike. “Don’t forget to phone.”
Every day the same phrase. “I won’t.” Every day the same reply.
I slammed Rico’s head hard against the wall and heard the dull thud of his skull hitting the bricks.
“I’m gonna ask you one more time and if you don’t make nice, I’m gonna blow your brains all over this alley.”
“Okay, okay, Man—I was jus scar’d of them Crips.”
“You forgot who you were really scared of—didn’t you, amigo?”
I pushed Rico back against the wall letting go of his collar. Rico rubbed his neck and felt the bruises. He was lucky this time.
I waanted to kill him—he saw it in my eyes.
“Hey, Lieutenant—we found the other Bloods in the backyard—what d’ya want me to do with them?”
“Shoot the bastards.”
Rico’s eyes widened.
“I wish,” Kotsiopoulos laughed.
“I’ll be there in a minute when I’m through with this piece of garbage.”
“So, give me the name, Rico.”
“It was Shanks—him an Li’l John shot up the shop—but Shanks—he’s the one that shot the lady.”
I punched Rico hard in the gut and watched him crumple…a deflated blowhard.
I cuffed him and pushed him into the back of the car and then turned back to finish business with the other Bloods.
Past noon and I still hadn’t phoned Lily. I pulled into the coffee shop, grabbed a takeout, then dialed my cell.
“Hey, how’s your day going?”
“Can you come home?”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m just feeling so depressed.” She began to cry.
“Don’t cry, Lil. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
I phoned dispatch, booked off a few hours and drove the unmarked out of the congested maze to the turnpike and the freedom of the suburbs.
Lily was on the couch crying. I tiptoed in softly and cradled her like a baby in my arms.
“Don’t cry. It’ll be okay, babe.”
“I was thinking about him all morning, Bret—I can’t do this.”
“You can do it—we’re in this together—we’ll make it through.”
I glance at the framed photo of Teddy on the coffee table and surreptitiously, reach behind Lily and face the photo away.
“Nothing will bring him back, Bret.”
I know. What can I say—that life will go on—that some fine day we’ll wake up and everything’ll be fine? Losing a ten-year old wasn’t a crisis—it was the ending of our whole world. We couldn’t go on—not like before.
I stay with her till she falls asleep and then taking the throw from the back of the sofa chair, drape it over her legs, lightly kissing her forehead and slipping out the door.
Kotsiopoulos is parked in the 711. I pull my car in beside him.
“Everything okay?” he asks.
I shrug and take the proffered coffee.
How’d the interrogation go?”
He gives me a dead stare. “They all sang—Shanks is goin away for a long time.”
I grunt and sip at my coffee.
Air goes into me; air goes out of me—other than that, I'm scarcely alive.
