by Thomas Cobb
“You know what those guys are? You know?”
“Punks,” Sammy says.
“Bums. They’re fucking bums. They don’t have real jobs. They just ‘hang out,’ drinking beer and smoking grass and riding around town being bums. Is that what you want? You want to be a bum?”
Yeah, Sammy thinks. I want to be a bum. I want to hang out with guys who get me, who aren’t saps to the system. Guys who don’t walk around with their noses up Martin Glendenning’s ass. You’re goddamned, fucking right I want to be a bum. He says, “I don’t know. Matt’s dead.”
“Get over it,” his father says. “It’s no loss.”
CHAPTER 3
(DAY ONE)
RONNY FORBERT SITS in the waiting room of Warrentown Hospital, drinking a Coke and picking at the leg of his trousers, working at the flap of fabric where they tore. A nurse has given him a couple of safety pins to keep the torn fabric from flopping around, but his fingers keep going to it, maybe after the scabbed, scraped skin under the bandage. On his arm, he has more safety pins, more bandages, and more scraped skin. He has a headache, and he feels like he had exactly the fight he was in last night.
He finishes the Coke and goes back to the small snack bar, buys another and a banana that has a little too much brown on it. He keeps looking at the entrance door to the emergency wing, the way everyone else does, waiting for someone to take them out of here.
He slept in the emergency ward last night. Or, rather, he didn’t sleep in the ward last night. Either someone kept coming in to ask the same questions over and over, or he was listening to the screaming of an obese man who kept demanding dinner because he knew his rights and he had been there for more than four hours. When someone brought him a sandwich, he became enraged and threatened to sue the hospital because he was entitled to a hot meal.
Just shut the fuck up, he thought, listening to the ranting, his jaw clenching and teeth grinding as he lay behind the curtained enclosure, then caught himself. He had watched someone die just a few hours ago. That’s where anger led, to violence and destruction. He wanted no more of it.
EVERY TIME THE door to the outside opens, every head turns to it. Then all but one turn back to what they had been doing, or not doing. Finally, it is Ronny’s turn to rise as Pete Mancuso makes his way through the door. Ronny sets down his Coke can and rises to meet Pete.
“How you all doing this morning?” Pete asks.
“Good. A little sore and tired, but OK.”
“Good. Let’s get out of here. I hate hospitals. I was worried I was going to have to wait until you got checked out.”
“No. That happened about an hour ago. They try to push them through the door as fast as they can.”
“That’s fine by me. You eat yet?”
“I had a Coke and some sweet rolls and a banana.”
“What? Are you on the Gordy Hawkins diet?”
“I could use a couple more pounds.”
“Too bad Gordy can’t give you some of his.”
“You’re not skinny, Sarge.”
“That’s Pete, not ‘Sarge.’ And I was a defensive lineman at a major college. This is what I’m supposed to look like. It’s my natural state.”
“LSU Tigers.”
“You been studyin’. Let’s get something to eat, then head back to the office. I think you’ve got kind of a busy day. You up for that?”
“Yeah. I’m fine. Just some road rash.”
“That’s not the ‘fine’ I’m worried about. You watched someone die last night.”
“Yeah. I’m good.”
RONNY WAITS UNTIL the waitress has filled their coffees and taken their orders. “Can we stop at Dunkin’ Donuts for some good coffee?”
“Dunkin’ Donuts don’t have good coffee. We have to go to Starbucks for that. Besides, I’ve lived my life not conforming to clichés. No Dunkin’ Donuts.”
“Pete, how did you come to be named Mancuso?” It was not the question he had wanted to ask. He couldn’t make himself ask the real question yet.
“The usual way. The way you got to be named Forbert. It was my daddy’s name. What you want to know is how did a black man come to be a Mancuso. My daddy, a good Eastern Italian, went to Louisiana in the seventies to find work on the oil rigs. His name was Pete Mancuso, too. While he was down there, he met a genuine Creole queen who weaved a spell he would never be able to break. When the jobs ran out there, he brought the whole family back up here. And that’s how you got a fine ebony Mancuso in Lydell.”
“Did your grandparents object? I mean, interracial marriage and all?”
“Hell, yes. But probably not the way you’re thinking. My mother was Creole, and Creole is special. Creole’s got long bloodlines and regal history. My grandfather, my momma’s daddy, was furious that she took up with some white Eyetalian Yankee polluting our fine gene pool. He turned his back on her and wouldn’t even talk to her when she announced she was getting married to Pete Mancuso.”
“Did he ever talk to her?”
“One night, she and Daddy was sleeping. I was there then, too, but I don’t remember it, only the hearing of it. The doorbell rang and my daddy went downstairs, and then he came back up to bed holding a yellow envelope. A Western Union telegram for my momma. You can bet she opened that envelope with trembling hands.”
“Why?”
“Back then, a telegram in the night could only mean bad news. Now it means that someone’s gone your bail. Anyway, my momma opened the telegram and read it. It said, ‘So, Lavinia [stop] Just how cold IS a well digger’s ass? [stop] Love Dad.’ ”
“You ever meet your grandfather?”
“A couple times. He died before I turned ten.”
“Am I going to get fired?”
“Probably not. Gordy and I haven’t discussed it, but I would guess you won’t. The only thing we can figure that you did wrong was failing to call for backup, and I know that I take some of the blame for that. The one time you did, I went two feet up your ass, which was my mistake. I think you’ll be getting some time off.”
“A suspension?”
“Likely. A week, maybe. But maybe not. I don’t know. That’s entirely up to Gordy. He’ll discuss it with me, but he will do what he thinks is right. I would probably go to the long end of that, just to keep it in your memory, but Gordy won’t ask me. He’ll tell me.”
“I really fucked up.”
“You fucked up. That’s enough.”
“When someone gets killed, you really fucked up. I really fucked up.”
“Let me go back and clarify myself here,” Pete says. “You made a mistake. Matt Laferiere and the driver of the hit-and-run car, they fucked up. Not you.”
Ronny lets out a long exhalation. “I killed Matt Laferiere.”
“No. The hit-and-run driver killed Matt Laferiere. You were an agent in a complicated accident. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. That’s probably the worst thing you can do right now. Take your medicine when Gordy gives it to you and pull yourself back together and be ready to come back to work when Gordy says you can.
“And more. Call your father and that fine girlfriend of yours. Set their minds at ease. Lydell is a small town. About now, everyone in town is aware of what happened last night. Don’t let your loved ones spend more time than they need to worrying about you.”
EVERYONE JUST LOOKS up when Ronny and Pete enter the door. Expressionless, no one says a thing until Pete says, “The prodigal has returned. Bandaged.” Then there are smiles and “how are you feelings” enough that for several seconds he is just repeating, “Fine, fine, fine.” Sue, the day dispatcher, comes out of her closet-sized cubicle and gives him a hug, then the men shake his hand and pat his shoulder. He is welcomed back into the world.
Gordy stays at his desk in his office, watching the scene from his open door, smiling, and when t
he other expressions of welcome are finished, he motions Ronny to come in. “Close the door,” he says when Ronny is inside.
“I’m OK,” Ronny says.
“Good. That’s good. I’m glad to hear it. Sit down.”
“I fucked up. I know it.”
“It was a serious breach of procedure. Make no mistake about that. But don’t take too much responsibility for what happened. It was an accident. There were lots of factors involved—alcohol, drugs, bad weather, a speeding driver on a road with terrible sight lines. But as soon as you saw you had four potentially unruly drunks on your hands, you should have called for backup. Immediately. But your mistake was a part, not the whole. And frankly, there’s no guarantee that calling for backup would have made any difference. Probably not. Things happen, and they happen fast. Nevertheless, you made a mistake. There are consequences from that.”
“I know. Pete told me.”
Gordy says nothing for a moment. “Five-day suspension, without pay.”
“Pete thought I might not get suspended.”
“Pete was wrong. It’s a stiff penalty for failure to call for backup, but there was a fatality involved.” Gordy puts up his hand to stop Ronny from responding. “I know. I just said it probably had little or nothing to do with the accident. But we live in two worlds. One world is a world of cause and effect. Excessive speed on a bad road leads to bad consequences. But what we do afterward can lead to bad perceptions in the political world.
“I don’t have to run for election, or campaign, but I’m still part of the political world in Lydell. I serve at the pleasure of the town council, as you do. The town council also appropriates all of the funds for the department—your salary, Pete’s, mine. All of it.” He picks up a pencil. “We have to ask the council for pencils, for Christ’s sake. So the town keeps a close eye on us. In large part, we are the government of Lydell. I can’t risk the perception that we let things slide here. So I’m suspending you, because that’s the punishment for failing to follow procedure, and I’m suspending you for five days to let everyone, including you and the council, know that I’m serious about following procedure.”
“All right.”
Gordy regards him for a moment with the look of a parent disappointed in his child. “I’ll need your weapon, too.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re on suspension. You’re still a cop, but you’re not. You have no need to carry a weapon.” He holds out his hand, waiting for Ronny give it up.
When he does, Gordy extracts the magazine, checks the chamber for a live round, then holds the gun up and squints at it. He turns it in his hand a couple of times.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Trying to read the serial number.”
“I can read it for you.”
Gordy paws at his desk for his glasses. When he finds them under some papers, he puts them on and turns on the desk lamp. He studies the numbers then writes them down. When he is done, he picks up the form he has been writing on, tears off a copy, and hands it to Ronny. “Your receipt,” he says.
“Why do I have to give up my gun?”
“I told you. For the next five days, you’re not a working cop. You’re a cop, but not a working one. You’re not authorized to carry a weapon. Also for your own safety.”
“My safety?”
“Standard in cases where the officer is involved in a fatal.”
“You think I’m going to kill myself?”
“No. But we try to deal with all possible events, not just the likely ones. It’s procedure, Ronny. Procedure.”
“Any other procedures?”
“You’re going to have to fill out a report. You can wait until tomorrow, but no longer than that. OK? Let me know when you’re ready.”
“I’ll do it now.”
“Are you sure? You don’t want a little time to think about it, to get it all straight in your head?”
“It’s straight in my head.”
“All right. Remember, this is the official version of what happened. If you make a mistake, it could come back to haunt you. I’m going to advise you to wait, to think it through a couple of times. Come back and do it tomorrow. Write it out, then let it rest a few hours before you read it over. A suggestion, not an order.”
“But it’s what you want me to do?”
“Yes. It’s my suggestion to you.”
“Tomorrow then?”
“Yes, tomorrow. Things will be better tomorrow. Take today and pull yourself together. Talk to your loved ones. Reassure them that you’re all right. Reassure yourself. Get your thoughts in order and come back tomorrow.”
Ronny nods as if Gordy has just given him a lecture on quantum physics. He turns and goes back into the main office. He can feel the absence of his weapon on his right hip. He feels off balance.
GORDY FEELS SORRY for the kid. He really does. He doesn’t want to make more of this than it is, to make Ronny feel worse than he does. He doesn’t want to freeze him up with the enormity of what has happened. This is going to be with Ronny the rest of his life.
It was 1963, Fort Bliss, Texas. Gordy was a private first class in the MPs. He liked the job. It seemed like something important, even when his primary job was pulling drunk soldiers out of bars in El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, though, officially, they never crossed the border. It was also often an interesting job, with changes of scenery and assignment. Usually. Not this night.
Gordy was in a patrol on watch over a convoy that had rolled in from the east. The cargo was top secret, which meant that it was more than likely nuclear. They were in an especially tense part of the Cold War, just months past the Cuban missile crisis. Everyone was moving nuclear weapons around, searching for the strategic upper hand.
That was the thinking. All Gordy had been told was that no one, no one, was to go near the convoy. They were authorized to shoot on sight. Gordy was walking the southern perimeter, a good assignment considering it was cold in that southern Texas way when the clear sky made for a sharp and brittle night. Walking was far better than taking up a stationary position.
He saw the shape moving in front of him, heading south toward the fence. He immediately ordered whoever it was to halt and identify. Instead the shape lurched forward, doing an awkward run as it carried something in its arms. He again ordered it to halt. It did not, and Gordy fired.
There was not enough light to see exactly what happened. The shape went down, and Gordy moved cautiously forward, M1 at the ready. He came to the spot where the shape had gone down and found no one. He headed south, flashlighting the ground, occasionally illuminating spots of blood. He found the hole cut in the fence, and found blood on the fence as well. He went back to where he had seen the person fall. There were two other MPs there now, standing over nothing but a box of nails spattered with blood.
They spent most of the night searching for the source of the blood. It was, almost surely, a Mexican who had come across to steal supplies from the base. Nails. They found the blood trail and followed it through the hole in the fence. But they found no one. Whether he, the wounded man, had made it back to the river and up into Ciudad Juarez, or had moved east into El Paso, or had died somewhere they could not find, no one knew.
Gordy has dreamed about it for years. There was a lot of blood. But it was reasonable to believe that the man had survived. Still, he didn’t know. He pulled a tour in Vietnam, again in the MPs, moving up the ranks. He never fired another shot at anyone, not as an MP, not as a cop back in the States. People ask occasionally if he ever killed anyone. He doesn’t know. He only knows that the dreams will start up again.
He wants Ronny Forbert to have some certainty, some clarity. Ronny was involved in a death, but he did not cause the death. Once Ronny has that clearly embedded in his mind, he will be all right. It will also take a long time.
SAMMY COLV
INGTON IS having breakfast. Mostly he’s swirling Cheerios through milk, mashing the occasional one with a spoon against the side of the bowl. It’s a strange thing. He’s hungry but he doesn’t want to eat. He takes a spoonful of cereal and puts it in his mouth. He chews a couple of times, then forces himself to swallow. He reaches for the sugar bowl and spoons more sugar into the cereal.
“You all right?” his father asks.
He shrugs. “Guess so.”
“Hungover?”
“Not really,” he lies.
“You thinking about what happened last night?”
“Yeah,” he lies again. Mostly he’s trying hard not to think about last night.
“You better think about it. You need to get your story straight. I talked to Martin Glendenning this morning. He’s concerned. He wants you to get your story straight. He needs you to tell our side.”
What’s “our side,” he thinks. He saw a guy die last night. His friend. He saw his friend die. Where are the sides to that? For his father and Martin Glendenning, it’s all about sides. There are always two sides to any story. Where do they get this shit?
He’s sick of his father, and he’s sick of Martin Glendenning. Half the kids at school think he’s a stuck-up rich kid because his father is on the town council. The other half think he’s a complete asshole for the same reason. Fuck them both.
But Sammy keeps running it through his head. It’s like a dream. He can’t shake it, but he can’t quite hold on to it, either. The more his father keeps at him to remember the details, exactly what happened, the less sure he becomes about it. He isn’t sure he saw exactly what happened. It was all very sudden and he was drunk. He remembers the lights, the way the headlights of the car suddenly lit the whole scene, Matt trying to scramble up, having trouble getting his feet under him, then the amazing sight of Matt flying through the air and the horrible thump at the end as he hit the Jeep.
Had he seen the fight between Matt and Forbert? Some of it. He knows they were struggling. He remembers their arms tangling and untangling. But the car hid much of what went on. He saw Matt go out onto the highway, and he saw the lights suddenly appear over the hump in the road. He has lots of pictures in his head. One- or two-second film clips. But he can’t put them together in the right way. His father keeps assuring him that he will be able to, but he was drunk last night. Very drunk. It was all messed up. Messed up bad.
