The Shooting

by James Boice

  Two long years follow in which he does little else but prepare for the brutality of the academy, the demands of life as a cop in New York City. He trains with a former Navy SEAL he hires, loses twenty pounds. He can run and run. He has never been in better shape. He feels terrific. He looks great, catches women noticing him and, appallingly, men. At intersections, he watches women emerging from taxis and black cars—elegant, beautiful older women—and they all look like his mother, and he imagines saving each and every one of them. Hangs out in cop bars, hovering near groups of them pretending he’s with them; lingers around cops on street corners, hoping they notice him and ask why an obviously natural-born cop has not been granted an exemption to the age requirement and offer to make some calls on his behalf.

  On his twenty-first birthday, he arrives to apply at the high office tower in Queens hours before they open up. First they give him a medical exam, which he passes, then an interview—purely ceremonial, he knows—where they ask if he has military service and he says not United States military, no, but he did proudly serve in a militia, and he tells them how when America was first founded all there were were militias like that, no official army yet, so that’s who fought the Revolutionary War, militias like the one he was in, so in that sense, he would have to say yes, he does have military experience. They write that down, not saying anything. He adds how comfortable around firearms he is, having grown up with them—how skillful and safe.

  They ask more basic things: criminal history, substance abuse. No criminal history, he answers, no drugs. They ask about mental health history and he says none, he’s perfectly sane. They say, —And your family? and since neither his father nor mother has ever been officially diagnosed as crazy he feels comfortable answering, —Them too.

  They ask about college. He says, —A little college.

  They say, —Minimum requirement is sixty hours of college credit, do you have that?

  He says, —Yeah, I think so, yeah. They say he’ll need to show documentation proving it before he can enter the academy. And he says, —Okay, but wait, what if I don’t have exactly sixty hours?

  They ask, —How many do you have exactly?

  And he says, —I don’t know, how long is sixty hours, like how many weeks?

  And they say, —About four semesters, or two years.

  He tries not to panic. They ask how long he attended college, and he tells them, —About three or four.

  And they say, —Three or four semesters you mean? and he says, —No, three or four weeks. And they ask how many credits he has, and he says, —None probably, and they ask what happened, and he says he dropped out, and they ask why, and he says, —It was a horrible place, I couldn’t stand it, I just couldn’t stand it, hardly anyone could, that place was a sinking ship, and anyway what does it have to do with being a law enforcement officer?

  And they say, —It’s the requirement. Didn’t you read the requirements? Don’t you pay attention to details? Can’t you follow basic instructions?

  And he says, —Yes, of course I read them, I read everything there was to read, I prepared fully. I knew about the requirement but assumed it was not, you know, set in stone, that it was just something to keep certain people out, people with no other skills, to dissuade them. I thought maybe you would make an exception for a guy like me.

  They say, —Why’d you think that?

  He says, —My test scores.

  They say, —Okay, let’s just put this aside for the moment and move on to the next phase of the preinterview process, the character assessment.

  He is relieved, that feels promising. —Okay, he says, —I’m ready, I think you’ll find I’ve got ironclad character, so fire away.

  Immediately they say, —The character assessment is complete and you’ve failed.

  He starts to sweat, feeling his dream dying in his arms. He says, —Wait, no, what? What do you mean?

  They say, —There was a clearly stated requirement that you disregarded because you decided it did not apply to you. We call that a character problem.

  He says, —No, no, no. He is trying not to cry.

  They say, —You have a character problem, and he says no, he doesn’t, and they say he does and that you cannot be a cop if you have a character problem, and he laughs at that, he laughs, he says that’s a good one, and he leaves, hating them—he hates the NYPD and he hates cops, he would never be one of them, never in a million years.

  A position opens up at one of his father’s companies. Lee applies and the interviews go very well and he is hired. That he is his father’s son is never mentioned, never taken into account. He is hired solely on merit. He is never sure what the company does but the position is called "analyst." He is very respected here. He shares an office with a senior analyst, David. Lee does excellent work despite not having the prestigious education that David and all the others have. He is blessed with innate capabilities, as he’s always suspected about himself. Feedback is excellent, his bosses tell him his work is absolutely stellar. He, they assure him, and the outstanding work he does are crucial, absolutely essential.

  The accomplishment he is most proud of, however, is one that falls outside the responsibilities of his job description. It takes months to win over the C-suite on the matter, but eventually, with perseverance, he succeeds in establishing a mandatory office-wide drill in which once a week at lunch all employees must take the stairs the twenty-four stories down instead of the elevator so they will be familiar with the building’s emergency escape routes in the event of a natural disaster or terror strike. They are grateful to him. Excellent idea. One day it might save our lives.

  He has found his place.

  One night after finishing a big project, David invites him for drinks. After several single malt scotches at a bar, Lee is quite drunk, and the prospect of going home alone to his empty penthouse makes him very sad. David stands, finishes his last one, squeezes Lee’s shoulder, and says good night, but Lee says, —No, don’t go. Come back to my place. Please. I want to show you something. Just come. I’ll pay for the taxi. Please come.

  David says okay and they go to Lee’s place. —Whoa ho ho, says David, looking around. —Great place.

  —It’s okay.

  —Where’s all the furniture? Are they going to paint or something?

  —No, I guess I just ain’t got around to getting any yet.

  —How long have you been here?

  —Only about a year. Hey, stay here a second, I’ll be right back. He leaves David and goes to the bedroom, the nightstand. His nightstand is an empty cardboard box atop a milk crate beside his mattress, which sits on the floor. Reaches into the nightstand, gets what he wants to show David, yes, David will want to see this. He brings it out into the living room where David stands at the floor-to-ceiling windows with his back to Lee, looking out at the city before him, all those lights in the night.

  —I’m sorry, David says, —but your view sucks.

  —Yeah, they keep building stuff and ruining it. I try to stop them, but—

  —Dude, I’m kidding. It’s incredible.

  Lee pretends to laugh. —No, I know you were. But if you think that’s a view, then you ought to see where I come from. I grew up on a mountain? Out in the country? Man, I’m telling you: that was a view. All these trees as far as you could see. I used to spend hours looking out my window just looking at them, they were so beautiful. Hey, David, check it out.

  David turns to Lee and sees what he holds in his hand; he stares at it like it’s a lion on a leash.

  His face goes dark. —Whoa, Lee.

  —Beautiful, ain’t it? Here, take it. Holding the unloaded gun in his palm with the chamber safely popped and barrel pointed away, he offers it for David to take and hold and examine and admire and ask technical questions about, like how men, how friends, do with one another’s guns. But David raises his hands above his shoulders, palms out, and backs away, nearly tripping over the coffee table. —What’s wrong?

  —No,
thank you, David says.

  —Why? It can’t hurt you.

  —Those things just go off on their own. Lee laughs at the insanity of the idea. But David flinches and says, —Please don’t point it at me.

  —I’m not, David. I thought you’d want to see it.

  —I absolutely do not. Please put it away.

  Lee feels a great sadness that quickly shifts into something else. —No, he says. —I won’t.

  —Please. I’m asking you to put it away and—

  —Try and make me.

  David sighs. —Lee...

  —No. It’s my home. It’s my right. Come try and make me.

  David glares at him. —You know what? They say you’re weird but I always say no, he’s cool. They make fun of your fire drills but I tell them it’s a smart idea. You know they all think you’re only there to spy on us?

  Lee snorts, incredulous.

  —They do. They think you’re a spy to tell the bosses who should be fired, but know who stands up for you? Me. I stand up for you. I defend you. I really do. But if I had known about this.

  —About what?

  —Your viewpoint. That you have that. I mean, what have I been doing defending you? Enabling you?

  —Enabling me how?

  —Doing your work.

  Lee says, —Doing my what now?

  —Lee, come on. What did you think? It’s never right, it’s not even close to being right, of course it’s not, why would it be, you don’t have the qualifications, you’re not an analyst, you’re only here because of your father. So whatever you hand in to me, I redo it all first before passing it along so our team won’t look bad.

  —I don’t get it, Lee says, —I thought I was essential. I thought we were friends.

  David looks at the gun, then at Lee, then back at the gun, and says, —Jesus. Lee looks down and sees that without meaning to he has moved the barrel of the gun so it now points almost directly at David, who begs him, —Please don’t.

  Lee likes the way he says it. He wraps his hand around the grip of the gun and keeps the barrel where it is. —Know why you think I’m going to shoot you? Because you know you’re a scumbag liar. Say it.

  —I’m a scumbag liar.

  —Say Lee Fisher is senior analyst and David is only here because of his father. David says it and Lee says, —Say I’m vital.

  —You’re vital.

  Lee gestures to the door with the gun and says, —Go.

  David does as he’s been told, and after he’s gone, Lee is depressed. Never has he been so depressed, so lonely. Never has he felt so unwanted and pointless. He closes the door and locks it again, all three titanium deadbolts, and sits on the couch with the gun dangling in his hand and he never goes back. He never goes back.

  Then he is thirty years old and the woman on the stool next to him is speaking very loudly to the person on the other side of him and it is very annoying, and Lee is about to stand up and move but then he realizes the woman is in fact speaking to him.

  —I’m Maureen, she is saying. —Tonight’s my last night in New York.

  She is beautiful. He realizes she is beautiful when she says tonight is her last night. She is beautiful, even if a certain kind of other man might dismiss her as overweight with greasy skin and obviously drunk, clearly a barfly. But Lee Fisher is a better man than that. We respect women where I come from. That’s the way I was raised.

  She says, —What’s your name?

  He does not want to tell her. Not yet. Buys her a drink. They talk. She is very funny. She is funny because she leaves tomorrow. And she does not mind that he cannot look at her or that she has to do all the talking. He wants to spend the rest of the day with Maureen. The rest of his life.

  They go to her hotel room. It is the first woman he has been with. But that has been by choice. He is a man of standards and morals, he does not need to be with hundreds of girls to know what he wants. What he wants, what he has always wanted, is Maureen. Oh, Maureen, Maureen. Everything he has become melts away like wax in the flame of Maureen.

  They lie in bed together. —Come with me tomorrow, she says. —leave with me.

  He says, —Where?

  —Wherever, she says.

  He says, —I don’t even know you.

  She says, —Then get to know me.

  —We don’t know what will happen.

  —We never do.

  —Too many things can go wrong.

  —If they do, we’ll make them right. Don’t you see? This is your chance. We only get one and this is yours.

  He says, —Chance for what?

  —To be saved.

  —I don’t need saving.

  —Yes, you do.

  He says, —Why do you say that?

  —Because it’s obvious.

  —What is?

  She smiles playfully and does not answer, pushes herself up to her hands and knees and crawls away from him down to the foot of the bed, and he watches her. She reaches down to the floor where his clothes lie in a heap and digs through them.

  —Maureen, he says, voice rising, becoming tense, —don’t do that.

  She ignores him.

  —Stop it! he shouts. He sits up and dives for her, grabs the wrist of her hand that grips the handle of the gun, squeezes it very tight.

  —Ow! she says.

  —Let go of it. Let go.

  —You’re hurting me!

  —Let go of it!

  —You let go of it.

  —Take your fucking hands off it. Now. Now, Maureen.

  She does. He gets up, securing the gun by placing it on the desk and standing between her and it. He’s naked. She lies there looking at him naked. He covers himself with his hands, then dresses urgently, holding on to the desk to balance himself.

  —What’s the matter? she slurs, still playing. —You don’t like me anymore?

  —No, he says, —I don’t think I do.

  She becomes serious and says, —I’m sorry. She rolls onto her back and looks at him upside down. —Come back to bed.

  He says, —No, thank you.

  —No, thank you, she mimics in a terse man’s voice. —Why not?

  —I gotta get.

  —You ain’t gotta get, she says, mocking him and the way he talks and who he is.

  —Please don’t tell me what I gotta do and what I don’t. Because you don’t know. You have no clue.

  She goes quiet, chastened. He sits in the desk chair and ties his shoes, keeping an eye on her. At the bar he thought her eyes were kind and compassionate but they are not kind and compassionate—they are just hungry. She covers herself with the blankets. But he can still smell the alcohol wafting out of her oily skin. He can still taste the bacteria in the folds of her unwashed flesh. He stands, desperate for air, desperate to leave.

  —I’m sorry, she says, sincere.

  —Me too.

  —Aren’t you even going to tell me your name at least? she says.

  —Hell no, he says, holstering the gun, opening the door, and leaving.

  She leans across the table at Per Se, places her hands over his. Her hands are small and dry and clean, like the rest of her. Her skin tanned, almost cured. Eyes sparkling, wrinkles at their edges. The lids of her eyes have grown puffy. Bands of tendons push out from her neck and her chest is covered in freckles, as are her breasts, most of which he can see down her loose shawl, silk or something like it, something he imagines you could drape over one of those statues with no arms or legs.

  She is in town to receive an award from the United Nations. She has done something to dirt. The dirt is in Africa and the thing she has done to it is very important and the dirt in Africa is now doing very well, much better than it was doing before, so thank God for her, thank God for what she has spent all these years doing for the dirt of Africa.

  —Babu, she says. —How are you? How have you been?

  He signals to the waiter for another Budweiser. He wears jeans, boots, a J.C. Penney sport coat, a cowboy ha
t. —Me? Great. I’ve been great.

  —Tell me more. Tell me everything. Tell me absolutely everything.

  —What do you want to know?

  She looks at him heavily, like she is trying to convey something without using words. He does not know what. He does not care.

  —Well, I don’t know. Have you missed me?

  What do you think? he wants to say. What the hell do you think? —What are you talking about? he says, —I see you all the time.

  —It’s been three years, she says.

  —No, it hasn’t.

  —Three years and three months.

  He looks away. He does not like meeting her eyes. They make him feel like she needs things from him and maybe he has them but he does not want to give them to her.

  —Anyway, she says, —how’s work?

  Work. She always asks about work. He does not have a job. He has done his best to find his place, his purpose. He tried to be an investigator for an insurance company, uncovering frauds. Then he tried to be a security consultant to corporations, tracking down sources of leaks, thwarting data breaches. For a time he was a guard at an office building but quit when they would not allow him to carry a weapon. He taught a self-defense class at a gym, but the clientele were all models and the admen trying to copulate with them and it was disgusting to watch, and trying to get these foolish people to understand the importance, the absolute dire necessity, of self-protection was futile and depressing. The problem has always been the same: the people he works with disdain him. They disdain him on sight. They disdain him for who he is and what he wears and whom he votes for. They disdain him for his sense of humor, of which they have none. They disdain him for everything. Everything. They do not like him. He likes them, but they do not like him. They want him to change, to be more like them. Then they might like him. But he does not ask them to change to be more like him. Yet they feel entitled to asking him to change. And, as he has found himself explaining a hundred times in a hundred meeting rooms to a hundred soon-to-be-former colleagues, if he were to change, if everybody were to abandon who he is and what he believes just because others wanted him to, what would happen to this country? What would happen? Who would be left to stand up for what is right? This country needs guys like Lee Fisher. It needs him. He is the keeper of the flame.