by Cylin Busby
I went into Mass General to have the procedure done, and it was no big deal. GI tube out, some minor stomach cramping, and a couple of stitches, and I was all closed up. So now I had no trachea hole, no stomach hole. That was starting to feel pretty good; I was seeing some progress.
The first day on blended food, I whipped myself up a milkshake with the works: ice cream, banana, and chocolate syrup—all in the blender. The process of using the syringe took forever, and I actually found myself missing the convenience of a GI tube that you could just empty stuff into. Another problem was that I had lost the ability to tell when I was full, so I managed to get a whole milkshake in and then started to feel seriously ill.
When your face is wired shut, throwing up is not only uncomfortable, it’s impossible—and somewhat life threatening. But I was trying to do it, very unsuccessfully. I had to keep swallowing down the stuff that was coming up my throat, and I knew I couldn’t do it for long, so Polly took me to the hospital. I got a shot of Compazine—an antinausea drug that worked fast. I felt better in minutes, great after half an hour, and they let us go home. When we reached the house, I noticed that the guards outside had changed shifts. There was a guy with dark hair who I didn’t recognize. He introduced himself to me, told me he was a summer special, now full time. The name still didn’t ring a bell. Neither did the face.
We went inside and I was feeling full of energy. Usually I’d be exhausted by a trip to the hospital, but I was twitching all over. I tried to tell myself it was from having real food for a change. Too much energy, first real chow in months. Dave Cusolito heard about my trip to the hospital and stopped by to see how I was doing and if I wanted to play some chess; I didn’t. He asked if he could come over later to watch the Bruins game. Sure, sure, I told him. But right now, I just couldn’t sit still.
I looked out the window at the guys in the yard. There was something about that dark-haired cop I didn’t like. He gave me a bad feeling. What was it about this guy? I didn’t know him. He was a new cop. That’s what it was. My mind was racing, like I’d had too much caffeine. I watched the guy through the window, and I started to have a bad feeling, a very bad feeling. What if Meyer hired him to infiltrate the police department, then get on duty guarding my house? He could kill Polly, the kids, and me. Make it look like an accident.
I was wearing my shoulder holster, so I took my gun out and checked to see that it was loaded. I cocked the hammer. I’m ready for you bastards, I thought. I started pacing the carpet in the living room. Come on in, just try it. I could feel the sweat running down my face. What was wrong with me? I had to try to keep it together. I felt like I was losing my mind.
I looked out at him again and he was sitting in the car, talking with the other guard. Maybe I was wrong; he looked like a good guy. But then I started pacing again. He’s probably just checking out the house today, and he’ll set it on fire when we’re asleep tonight. Or he’s waiting for my next trip to Boston so he can kill my family. Insane thoughts were racing around in my head.
“What are you doing?” Polly asked me, and I spun around, my gun pointed at her. “John, what’s wrong?” She looked terrified.
I wrote her a scrambled note: “I don’t know, feel funny. I don’t trust new guy outside.”
“He’s okay, Don would never have let him on this detail if he didn’t check out. You know that,” she tried to reassure me. “Put your gun back, no one is threatening you.”
I gently uncocked the hammer and laid the gun down on a table by the couch. “We need to do your suction; you can hardly breathe,” Polly pointed out.
When she left the room, I picked up my gun again and resumed pacing. She came back in with the syringe and asked me to sit down.
“Can’t sit, I have to get out of here,” I wrote to her. I felt like something was crawling under my skin.
“Oh God,” she said, looking scared. “You’re having an anxiety attack—a bad reaction to the antinausea medication they gave you. We have to get you back to the hospital.” Then she went to the door and motioned to the guys outside. “I need a guard to drive us back to the hospital. He’s having a really bad reaction to the Compazine.”
So I was loaded back into the car and had to be convinced that it was going to be okay, that I could put my gun away. “Trust me,” Polly said. “It’s the medication they gave you; you’re going to be fine.” But the whole drive to the hospital, I couldn’t stop my legs from twitching, my hands from shaking. I was looking for that blue car, just knew I was going to see it. Thinking, He’s coming to finish me off. When we got to the hospital, they quickly gave me a shot of something to calm me down.
“This happens to a lot of folks,” the doctor explained as soon as the drugs took effect. “There’s something in Compazine that causes extreme anxiety in some patients.” Everything around me was slowing down again to a normal speed, and my heart stopped racing. The doctor got very close to my face and spoke loudly. “John, remember the name of this drug so that if anyone gives it to you again, they can also administer some Benedryl to help keep your anxiety down, okay?” I wanted to write him a note to tell him that just because I couldn’t talk didn’t mean I couldn’t hear. Then I realized he was probably talking loud because, suddenly, I was completely out of it. I could hardly keep my eyes open on the ride home. Whatever they gave me to calm me down sure did the trick. I think I slept for the rest of the day. So much for the first day back on real food.
I hadn’t talked to the detectives who had been assigned to my case in a while, but I heard from my buddies that they were slowly working their way through interviewing everyone I’d arrested over the past twelve months, looking for a motive. So they said, anyhow. If that was true, if they were doing their jobs, I knew they’d eventually get to the night I arrested Paul Cena—Meyer’s illegitimate son—and that should raise some red flags. And the charges I filed against Raymond’s brother, James Meyer—assault and battery against a police officer with a deadly weapon. Our court date had been set for about two weeks after the day I’d been shot and had to be postponed while I was in the hospital. It would have been very convenient for James Meyer if I hadn’t survived—his case, and it was a serious one, probably would have been dismissed due to lack of evidence. Looked like a motive to me. But I still wasn’t holding my breath waiting for the detectives. I was becoming more convinced that my family would be safe only after I took matters into my own hands.
Meanwhile, the town had been spending a fortune protecting my family and me around the clock. Until the police could lock someone up for my attempted murder, they needed to protect us from this person or persons. It had been a new part of our police contract with the town, and we had just recently accepted it. I actually laughed at this clause when I read it, thinking, I don’t need anyone to protect me. If someone fucks with me, I will blow his ass away. Turns out that I was the first cop on the force to need the new protection clause—and I wasn’t laughing anymore.
There had been some rumblings in the department from the top guys and town officials. With my multiple surgeries, lengthy hospital stays, and twenty-four-hour security detail, I was turning into the real-life “Six Million Dollar Man,” without Steve Austin’s special abilities. You would think this would light a fire under the detectives to get the case solved a little faster. But instead it led them to another avenue altogether.
One day, a detective came by to talk to Polly. He had some delicate questions to ask. Before my shooting, had she been having an affair? Was there anyone else in her life, anyone that she was romantically involved with? Polly tried to keep most of this interview from me, but she was so irate afterward that some of it came out. Basically the insinuation was that perhaps she had hired someone to pop me. Or that her jealous lover tried to kill me, something like that. I could see where they were going with this. If it’s personal, and not related to police business, then the police department doesn’t need to pick up the tab, right? But they couldn’t be more wrong—I knew it and Polly
knew it. Everybody on the force knew it too, especially the detectives. My shooting was work related, and that was the bottom line.
We had a lot of other folks asking us questions too, more pressing questions—these came from the reporters at the local and Boston papers, and the local TV news guys. There was one reporter who wouldn’t let the story go, who came by on a regular basis to talk to me. It was equal parts horrifying and amazing to her that people were seemingly allowed to get away with murder and attempted murder right in a beautiful little town like Falmouth. She asked me once how I felt—really felt—about the case. I didn’t want to give her any information that would come back to haunt me, or that Meyer and his cronies could read and laugh about. But the answer was that I felt pissed off, and this was pretty much all the time. I probably should have been feeling happy to be alive, blessed to still be with my family, glad that I didn’t have brain damage, all of the above. Instead, I was just angry. I couldn’t wait to get back at the people who had caused me so much pain and misery. I didn’t realize until I got home from the hospital how poorly the investigation was going. I knew it was going to be mishandled, but this was just plain embarrassing. I also quickly realized that the guys protecting me from Meyer were also protecting Meyer from me. I wasn’t able to acquire any new weapons; even if I wanted to use my police-issued guns to avenge myself, I wasn’t able to sneak out. I was, in effect, under house arrest. Confined and accompanied wherever I went.
The only way out of this mess that I could see was leaving town. I would have to move my family somewhere safe first, to get away from all this surveillance and the guards. By then I would be healthy and strong and able to arm myself with an untraceable weapon. I had walked the trails through the woods to the dump entrance and knew right where I could shoot from and leave without being seen. I would learn Meyer’s schedule, just like he had learned mine, and then I would be there at just the right time. Every night, when I closed my eyes, I would walk that trail in my mind. I knew every inch of it. Where I would be, the gun I needed, how I would wait for just the right shot. I would do this when I knew my family was safe, out of Falmouth, somewhere else. When I didn’t have guards on my back all day and night. I just had to wait until the time was right. When he least expected it, when he thought we were gone for good. That would be the day for payback. And it was coming soon.
chapter 23
CYLIN
MONTHS after Dad got home, reporters would still sometimes come by the house, mostly to talk to Dad and to take pictures. One afternoon, a photographer came by after school and wanted us all to stand together out in the yard, so they got Mom and Dad lawn chairs and we stood behind them while they took some pictures. I was excited to see a picture of myself in the paper, but when it came out that weekend, it was a picture of Mom and Dad in the chairs, not one with us in it. “They decided it wasn’t a good idea to show you guys in the paper,” Mom explained, but I was still a little disappointed, especially since I had told Amelia and a couple of other girls at school that I was going to be in the newspaper.
One afternoon, the phone rang while Mom was at school and my brothers were watching TV, so I picked it up. “Is this where John Busby lives?” a man asked.
“Yes,” I told him.
“How’s he doing?”
“He’s doing good,” I said, thinking that the caller was one of Dad’s friends.
“Can he talk yet?”
“No, he can’t, but if you want to talk to him, he can write things down,” I explained.
“Do they know who did it yet?” the man asked.
“Did what?”
“Who did it, who shot him? Did they find the guy yet?”
“I don’t know,” I told him. I didn’t know what else to say.
“Do they have any idea who it might be?”
Suddenly I felt scared; who was this guy? Why was he asking so many questions? “Kelly!” I yelled to my cousin. She came in from the kitchen and took the phone from me. She could tell from my face that something had happened.
“Who’s this?” she demanded.
I couldn’t hear what the guy said, but Kelly looked angry. “Uh-huh, well let me tell you something, don’t ever call here again. You had a little kid on the phone; that was totally inappropriate. Don’t you think she’s been through enough? Don’t call here anymore. Leave us alone!” She slammed the phone down. “No more answering the phone,” she told me. Then she went in and told Eric and Shawn the same thing. “If the phone rings, let your mom or me answer it, got it?”
Then she went outside and called over the guards on duty. I pushed back the curtains in the living room and watched her. She was pretty mad. One of the cops came into the house and picked up the phone. He called someone at the phone company and then radioed into the station. By that night, we had a black box and a tape recorder attached to our hallway phone with a bunch of wires. “It’s really important that you kids don’t pick up the phone anymore,” Mom explained to us at dinner. “If someone calls and says something about Dad, we need to record it. Kelly and I know how to use the tape recorder, so leave it for us.”
“What if nobody else is home?” Eric asked.
“Somebody will always be here with you guys; you’re not ever going to be alone in the house again, so don’t worry about that.”
That was true, we were never alone anymore. Before Dad was shot, we could play out in the yard or with the neighbors with no problem. We could walk down to the Zylinskis’ house. And when Mom had to go and run an errand or do something after school, Eric was in charge. He was thirteen and could run things pretty well. But since we’d come back from Boston, all of that had changed. We didn’t play outside. I couldn’t ride my bike anywhere; the cops outside wouldn’t let me. We weren’t allowed to have anyone over to play, and no one invited us to their house, either. Sometimes Eric and Shawn would play touch football or baseball with Dad’s cop friends when they were over on the weekends, but it was always in our small yard and under the watchful eye of at least two armed officers.
So the next time I heard that Eric and Shawn were going shooting with Dad and his friends, I begged to come along. At first, Dad said no. But I knew if I whined a little, I could get what I wanted. “Please, I never get to go anywhere fun. It’s not fair!”
Mom was still in class, so Dad thought about it for a second. He wrote a note to Rick: “Maybe she can handle a .22?”
‘As long as you think Polly would be okay with it,” Rick said. He looked over at me, and I could tell he would rather I just stayed at home.
“Okay, Cee,” Dad wrote in his small notebook. He motioned to everyone: Let’s go.
“This might turn out to be a good idea,” Dad’s friend Roger Gonsalves said as we all went out to the cars. “You’ve got a lot of guns in the house; she should understand how to use them, for her own safety.”
Dad nodded.
We drove out to an area just off the town dump. It was a chilly late-fall day, so the garbage didn’t smell, plus most of it had been recently plowed under. Dad and his friends poked around in the trash nearby for bottles and cans to shoot, and Eric and Shawn helped. I just looked around for anything good, broken toys and that kind of thing, but found nothing.
When they had found a few bottles, they lined them up on the ground and had Eric and Shawn and I stand back about twenty feet away. Dad took out his revolver and handed it to Shawn. He wrote something in the small spiral notebook that he always carried and showed it to Shawn and Eric. “I remember,” Shawn said, nodding. The revolver looked gigantic in his hands. He opened the chamber and spun it to look at the bullets inside, then clicked it shut. Eric held a gun that Don had handed him, and he did the same thing.
“Locked and loaded,” Don said. He had another gun, which he aimed at the bottles. He took a shot and the bottle in front of him, a green 7UP bottle, shattered instantly. The gunshot was loud, and I could still hear it after the bottle was broken on the ground, echoing in my ears. Shawn went next, h
olding the gun straight out in one hand and supporting his wrist with the other hand. When his gun went off, he missed the bottle and he also jumped back a little bit. His hands shook, not like Don’s, which didn’t move at all. Then it was Eric’s turn. He aimed the same way Shawn had but squinted down the barrel of the gun for a second. His gun went off, and the bottle in front of him broke in two. “That’s it!” Don boomed in his deep voice.
Dad came over and put a small gun into my hands. He showed me, without talking, a tiny button on the side of the handle. “That’s the safety,” Roger leaned over and said. “The gun won’t work unless you press that button in, like this.” He pressed it for me. Then Dad held my arms out like Eric and Shawn had held theirs, and put my finger on the trigger. With his hands on my arms, he nodded to me and I knew he meant that I should pull back on the trigger. I pulled my finger back, but it wouldn’t budge. I tried harder, but I still couldn’t move the trigger. Rick just laughed and watched us while Dad put his index finger over mine and pushed down. I felt the trigger snap back quickly and the gun went off, but we missed the bottle. “Ow!” I cried out. Something on the top of the gun had kicked back and pinched the top of my hand. I had a red mark that looked like a little blood blister forming.
“That .22 has a bite,” Don explained. “Got to keep your hand down here.” He showed me with his big hands how to hold the gun the right way. The gun looked like a toy when he held it. “That there is the same kind of gun that your mom has,” he pointed out, “and she had the same problem with it at first.”
When Don said that, I suddenly remembered one afternoon, shortly after Dad got out of the hospital, when Mom and Dad went gun shopping with some friends. Dad had a couple of police- issued firearms, but Mom didn’t have a gun and it had been recommended that she get one. She picked out a pretty gun, small with a pearl handle. She had a license to carry it, and the picture on the license was kind of silly because it had been taken while she was wearing her nursing uniform. She looked like some kind of superhero—the nurse lady with a gun. She even had a little leather holster for it that she wore to school or whenever she left the house.
