We Are Not Like Them

by Christine Pride

  Annie nods in agreement. “I remember how when I first married Matt, I was wary of even telling people he was a cop—all the stupid assumptions they would make about him.”

  “And now they’re protesting us like we’re bad guys,” Matt snaps.

  “Julia, do we have to worry about this protest tomorrow? What can we do about that?” Cookie asks. “I hope it rains, a big old downpour so they have to cancel it. It’s absurd that the mayor thinks it’s okay to talk to them. He’s supposed to be on the side of law enforcement. I mean, for heaven’s sake, show some support. He keeps bending to those activists”—she spits the word as if she’d said “puppy killers”—“when he should be standing up for the people who are doing their jobs.”

  I’ve lost track of how many times Cookie has delivered this rant. She’s been in a perpetual tizzy over the mayor and the police commissioner and how she thinks they’re bowing to media pressure instead of protecting the officers, and her son. The mayor issued a statement in support of the police department twenty-four hours after the shooting. Then, a day later, after the protests began, he dialed it back, saying, “The city will do everything in its power to make sure justice is served.”

  “It’s a betrayal!” Cookie slams her fist on the table. “Those people trying to make my child out to be some devil just for doing his job. I won’t have it!”

  “Come on, honey.” Frank’s jaw gives the telltale twitch. When Cookie gets worked up, her husband is the only one who can calm her down. “We know the truth. Kevin had to do what he did to protect himself and his partner.” Frank’s words ooze from the side of his drooping lips, but they don’t have their desired effect, judging from the red streaks across Cookie’s sallow cheeks.

  “Exactly. He was protecting himself. It’s a jungle out there. A war zone—right, Frank? We know. You remember.” It seems to soothe her to say this again and again. “I mean, there are animals out there.”

  For her part, Julia doesn’t seem fazed by Cookie’s outburst, or at least she hides it well, probably a necessary skill for her job. “I understand your frustration, Mrs. Murphy. I do. One of the things I need to remind you of is that you should feel free to express these really difficult emotions here in your own home. You should—you need to. But you also have to be very careful about whom you share your opinions with and the language you use to share those opinions. Everything you say can be misconstrued, and that is the last thing Kevin needs.”

  Julia lets this sink in. I can tell she doesn’t want to have to say the obvious: How about you don’t call people animals? When Cookie nods, she continues.

  “We have to count on the fact that both sides of this story will come out. When it comes to the march, try not to take it personally.” Julia pointedly says “march” instead of “protest.” “People are marching about an issue. It’s not about Kevin per se.”

  “Well, it sure feels personal. They want to send my son to jail. For doing his job.”

  “They’re gonna riot, you know they are. Set fires, break windows, punch a police horse. That’ll be good for us.” Matt again. No one reminds him that the one time someone punched a police horse in this city, it was a drunk white guy celebrating an Eagles win.

  “Oh, shut your mouth, Matt, it’s a peaceful event,” Annie says, ever the diplomat and always quick to put her husband in his place. But he’s too worked up and skulking around the kitchen. Like mother, like son.

  “First of all, whose side are you on, Annie? And mark my words, those people are ready to riot. They riot. That’s why they do. Hello, Ferguson? They’re going to turn Broad Street into Ramallah.”

  If one more person says “those people,” I might lose my shit. Besides, I’m willing to bet Matt can’t locate Raleigh on a map, let alone Ramallah.

  I try to catch Kevin’s eye, but his are squeezed shut. He leans his head back against the wall as Matt blusters on.

  “March for Justice, my ass. How come they can’t see that? You asked him to drop his weapon. He went into his pocket. Better to be tried by twelve than carried by six, man. If you have to take the shot, you take the shot. You did the right thing Kev-o. You’ve got a baby on the way. Your job is to get out alive.”

  I have a flashback to last May, standing in a hot banquet hall in Passyunk at the wake of a cop named Jamal who got shot Memorial Day weekend while trying to stop three guys from breaking into an ATM at the Navy Yard. Kevin hadn’t known Jamal all that well, but it had hit him hard; any officer’s death anywhere does. It hit me too, and again when Matt says it now. Your job is to get out alive. At Jamal’s wake, the officers stood in tight clusters, stiff and formal in their dress blues on one side of the room, while the spouses, mostly women, clucked over sweaty deli platters at the buffet on the other and passed around an envelope growing fat with cash—including the $100 bill that Kevin slipped in that we really couldn’t spare. One of the LEO wives set up two weeks of meal delivery for his widow, Denise, and three kids and I did my duty by dropping off a chicken casserole on my designated day. I left it on her doorstep though. I couldn’t face her knowing I was going home to my husband. That very night, I started researching bulletproof vests.

  “I just wish I was on duty tomorrow,” Matt says. “If Annie wasn’t working, I’d happily volunteer for overtime and keep the knuckleheads in check.”

  Matt’s normal beat is Rittenhouse, safest neighborhood in Philly; the other cops call it Hollywood, but you’d think he was battling ISIS to hear him tell it. As I watch him fume, a thought that has always hovered just out of reach crystallizes, like a camera lens clicking into focus: I hate my brother-in-law. He and Kevin are close, so I tolerate his bullshit, but suddenly, after all these years of stomaching his mansplaining tirades and moody tantrums, I can’t ignore the simple truth: Matt is spoiled, immature, entitled. And now that I’ve allowed this thought into my mind, the door slams behind it and I won’t be able to deny it any longer. I wonder, not for the first time, how Annie—lovely, funny, smart Annie—can be married to this man. They’ve been together since they were kids though, and in that time Annie got sober, lost her parents, had a baby and a miscarriage. Matt was her rock, her person, even if he’s an asshole to everyone else.

  “Fuck you, Matt.” I say it under my breath. It’s not as satisfying as saying it to his face. I might as well be ten years old in the back seat of Blazer’s car again, when that dirtbag called Riley and Ms. Sandra the N-word and I stayed silent.

  Annie does speak up. “You can be a real asshole, Matt, you know that?” And I secretly cheer.

  “Please stop. We have company.” Cookie shoots daggers at both of them.

  Julia waves a hand in the air to dismiss the concerns, and my eyes catch on her giant diamond ring, a sparkling boulder on a ridiculously skinny finger. I hide my own hands beneath the table, finger my sliver-size diamond.

  Cookie leans over to Julia as if taking the woman into her confidence. “Listen, we know someone who’s a reporter. Don’t you think it would be smart if she interviewed Kevin so that people could see he’s a good guy? She’s a personal family friend—Riley Wilson.”

  This was inevitable; still, it blindsides me, especially Cookie’s ownership of Riley when they’ve barely met. In fact, it was right here at this kitchen table that Cookie tried to talk me out of having Riley as my maid of honor. She leaned into me as we were flipping through inch-thick copies of wedding magazines, her breath sweet with chardonnay. “Are you sure you want Riley to be your maid of honor? You and Annie have gotten so close. It would mean so much to her, and wouldn’t she look beautiful up there at the altar with you? She’s going to be family, after all.”

  Clever the way she’d couched it, but I knew what it was really about. Riley had once tried to explain this particular mindfuck to me: you could never be sure what was about race and what wasn’t, so you always had to second-guess yourself (Was that because I’m Black?). In that moment, I got it—in Cookie’s mind, Annie made for better wedding pictures.

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nbsp; “You’re friends with Riley Wilson? She’s the Black friend?” Julia turns to me, putting the pieces together.

  “Best friends,” Cookie stresses.

  The mere mention of Riley’s name makes my insides burn. There’s no way Riley is going to do the interview, but I haven’t told anyone about what happened at Monty’s or that we haven’t spoken since, least of all Cookie. They all stare at me, waiting for a response.

  I can’t lie or dodge, as much as I may want to. “I really… I don’t think Riley will do the interview with Kevin.”

  “Well, I don’t see why on earth not. Would she do an interview with you at least, Jen?” Cookie claps once, as if she’s found the magic solution. “You can tell our side of the story.”

  Before I can respond, Julia jumps in. “I really don’t think that’s a good idea, Mrs. Murphy. Jen isn’t the center of the story. It’s bad optics.”

  “Bad optics. Pffff.”

  “Yeah, I can only imagine all the white-tears memes that would come as a result of that,” Annie says, earning a disapproving stare from Cookie.

  “What on earth is a meme?” she asks.

  “Never mind, Mom, the point is, Jen is not the focus here. Even with her connection to Riley.”

  I shoot Annie a grateful half smile.

  Matt abruptly gets up and walks out of the kitchen and into the sunken living room and turns on the Sixers game, as if announcing that the meeting is finished. He calls out over the play-by-play. “None of this matters. It’s gonna be fine. We don’t need an interview with Riley or any of those vampires in the press. It’s not like Kevin’s going to get indicted, man. These investigations are all for show. No cop ever serves time.”

  Julia interrupts him. “That was true. But things are changing. Public sentiment is against you. We are here to protect you, but you have to work with us.”

  She makes a point of looking at her watch. “I think we’ve covered what we need to for now. I’ll be in touch as things progress. You can call or text me anytime, day or night, in the meantime. Remember, the most important thing is to stay quiet. If anyone from the media reaches out to you, send them to me.” She drops a business card on the table, ring glinting in the fluorescent light, and then turns to me.

  “Will you walk me out, Jen?”

  At least it’s an excuse to leave the kitchen. I follow Julia down the hall like a dog. I wish I could follow her right out the front door. We could go see a movie or wander around the mall, and I could pretend I have a different life for a few hours.

  Julia stops at the door, places a hand on my arm. “Please don’t talk to your friend Riley about this case. I’m sure you think you can trust her, but you never know about people.”

  She’s wrong. I do know Riley, and I would trust her with my life.

  I only nod, and Julia pauses, hesitant to say whatever comes next. “I have to ask. Does Riley have any personal information about Kevin that she could use against you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, things you’ve confessed to her in the past as a friend, about Kevin or his job? Any trouble he’s gotten in…?”

  Even as I say, “No, of course not,” my mind races. Is there something? The truth is I hardly know anything about the inner workings of Kevin’s job. He’s almost always stopped himself when he starts telling me: “Never mind….” “I shouldn’t….” “It wasn’t that bad.” There was one night when we both got shitfaced and he started in on a story about a couple of cops who would threaten people for arrests for stuff like jaywalking or loitering or traffic stops just so they could shake them down for cash.

  “Made him give him everything in his wallet and a bag of weed that was in the glove compartment and let the guy go. Hazard pay, he called it.” The next morning Kevin was mortified he’d told me. “Never tell anyone I told you that, okay? I need to keep my mouth shut.”

  “I’m your wife, Kev. You can tell me anything.”

  “That’s not how it works, Jenny. What happens at work needs to stay there. My dad always said that, and I never got it until I became a cop, but it makes sense to me now. Not with that dude stealing the weed. That guy was an asshole. But sometimes we need to break a few rules, especially this new DA’s rules, to get the job done. No one but a cop understands the kinds of things we see, the messed-up people we’re trying to help every day. They punch us, shoot at us, tell us they’ll kill our families, and we’re supposed to just read them their rights and give them a hug. It doesn’t work like that. It never actually works like that. Shit happens and sometimes we have to do things. If another cop has your back, then you need to convince yourself that you would have theirs, because the alternative is that you stop trusting anybody.”

  I told myself over and over that Kevin didn’t—wouldn’t—behave like some of those asshole cops. And besides, even if I ever told Riley anything, she would never… but then the tiniest sliver of doubt creeps in. It’s Julia’s fault. I need the woman to leave, need to close the door against her and this crazy line of thinking. Riley may sometimes be distracted and distant, but she would never, ever betray me. There aren’t many fundamental truths you can count on in life, but this is one of them. If I don’t believe that, then I don’t know what I can believe in.

  Kevin isn’t in the kitchen when I return. Annie’s playing solitaire with an ancient deck of cards that is for some inexplicable reason always sitting on the table. There’s friction in the air. It wafts toward me like the smell of spoiled food.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I was telling Cookie that just because cops usually get off, that doesn’t make it right necessarily,” Annie says, adding to the row of cards laid out before her.

  “You’re talking about your brother-in-law.” Cookie glares at her from the sink, where she’s washing dishes. Annie can get away with saying the kinds of things that I could never say to Cookie, because she grew up down the street, literally six houses away. Cookie’s known her since she was in diapers.

  “I knew little Annabel Myers when she was still wetting her pants,” is how Cookie opened her toast at Annie and Matt’s wedding. At which point my sister-in-law leaned over the table and whispered to me, “Yeah, because she scared me so bad, she made me wet my pants.”

  “I’m not talking about Kevin. I’m saying in general. You know we had to do this bias training at the hospital, all the nurses. ‘Unconscious bias,’ they call it. Like a white nurse not listening to a Black patient tell her they’re in pain or judging them for being overweight. We all do and think these things subconsciously. Like I realized that I’m way nicer to the Black store clerks because I feel like they probably don’t like me, or how I call them ‘honey’ or ‘girl.’ ”

  “That’s all baloney,” Cookie scoffs. “Everybody wants to make everything about race. Calling everyone a racist right and left! I’m so sick of it. Sometimes things just happen.”

  I remember Annie telling me about this training. We’d had drinks that night, our standing monthly date over dim sum we always used to catch up or, mainly, to complain about Cookie. She said they’d done an activity where the facilitator asked people what came to mind when they thought about race. Apparently, one of the nurses, a white woman named Stephanie who often works the same shifts as Annie, had blurted out, “I feel lucky I’m not Black.”

  “Can you even imagine?” Annie said, horrified, blowing her indignation into her hot broth.

  I shook my head, mustering all the shock I could, except the truth was, I could imagine thinking that. I’ve maybe even had the same thought pass through my mind before, quickly, like a dark shadow. Not that I would ever, ever admit it to a roomful of strangers, or my sister-in-law. Or even myself. It’s way too awful. What if Riley ever knew I thought that?

  Annie sets down the cards and looks up at Cookie. “All I’m saying is, would Kevin have been so afraid of a fourteen-year-old white kid that he would have shot him?”

  The air evaporates like the room itself is hol
ding its breath. How did she dare to ask that question, the one I can’t even ask my own husband? Riley’s words from Monty’s echo in my mind. Well, it’s not usually white kids being accidentally shot by police, is it?

  “Shut the hell up, Annie,” Matt hollers from the living room.

  “Language,” Cookie yelps, as if “hell” is the worst thing happening here.

  “Where’s Kevin?” I look into the living room, at the empty seat next to Matt on the couch, desperately hoping he didn’t hear this exchange.

  “Bathroom, I think,” says Annie.

  “Please don’t say that in front of him, Annie. Please,” I beg.

  My sister-in-law nods. She loves Kevin like her own brother and would never want to hurt him.

  I go off to look for my husband and find him in the narrow hall, charging out of the bathroom.

  “Look at this!” His normally easygoing expression morphs into disbelief and then something even uglier: rage. He shoves his phone in my face.

  It’s a screenshot from Twitter, a tweet with a cartoon drawing of a Black body on the ground and cops brandishing giant machine guns standing above it. Someone photoshopped Kevin’s real face over one of the cartoon cops’. Floating above their heads are large block letters: KILLERS BELONG BEHIND BARS.

  “Julia literally just told us we can’t look at stuff like this, Kevin. You’ve got to try to block it out. It isn’t helping anything.”

  He bangs his head against the hallway wall a few times. The row of family photos shudders. Cookie in her wedding dress, a replica of Princess Diana’s, but even bigger and more sparkly; four generations of Murphys in their dress blues, years of school portraits—Kevin with a bowl cut, Matt with a rat tail.

  Kevin speaks into the wall. “I’m a good cop. I’m not an asshole. I’m definitely not a racist. All the things I’ve done for people…”

  “I know, Kev. I know.” I run my fingers through his hair.

  This is the most emotional Kevin’s been in five days. Hearing him break down is a relief, better than the “I’m fine” he’s given me every time I’ve asked him if he’s okay.