I’d sat out in my car for half an hour, fucking around on my phone, before finally summoning the nerve to get out, lock the door, and approach the house. My wife was shuffling between preparing a meatloaf and yelling the answers to the Jeopardy questions in the next room. God, is she ever smart. I don’t know whatever made her fall for a knucklehead like me. More than likely it was the uniform. I look put together in this blue thing. Like I know what I’m talking about. Like I know who I am. I wish I felt like the guy she sees when she looks at me.
She knew it before I walked in. She didn’t know exactly, but she knew like she always does that something bad had happened. Maybe she saw me pull up in the cruiser from our large picture window. She might have glanced out during a commercial break for shampoo or a Chevy truck, and saw the blue light shining up into my face, all slumped over. I’m supposed to be a man.
“What happened?” she asked. “Is it about what was on the news?”
I nodded. “Yut. I’m sure it’d make the news.” The chief and the legal team kept me away from the camera crews. If you’re good in front of the cameras, keep your cool, and accept no guff from anyone, you’ll make a good chief. I’ve got that last one in spades, but on the other two, I’m sunk.
“Oh, baby.” she said, coming to me, catching me like I wasn’t twice the measure of meat that she was. She lowered me to the chair and held me like she would hold the baby we never had. “Oh, baby.” she said again rocking me.
While she stroked my hair, I closed my burning eyes. I felt her chin move slightly, and I could feel her gaze looking me over. I never lie to her. It wouldn’t be of any use. She sees through everything. In a different shuffle of the deck, she’d have been a fine detective. But in this deal, she’s an insurance claims adjuster. What variables she must be calculating of me right now. My chest unusually bare. The news. This broken collapse. My empty holster. Yeah, she knows what two and two and two and two add up to.
Today, two and two add up to a shitstorm shift with me in the middle of it, and another black mother crying over the body of her black baby boy. Goddammit. Goddammit. Goddammit.
Why can’t anyone just obey direct orders?
I’m not racist, but I swear dealing with black kids is completely different. I treat everyone the same. I never wanted to shoot anyone. I wish the kid had been white. I wish the kid was still alive. God.
She touches my neck, slow. Eyes burn salty. Clinch.
I told him to get down. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.
She draws a small circle with her finger nail on my back.
Why didn’t he get down? Why did he run? You can’t run.
It’s so hot in here.
You can’t run.
Her palm is flat. Palm to spine. Between the shoulder blades.
You can’t run.
He’s dead.
Why is it so goddamn hot in here?
Why is it so goddamn hot?