The Deuce

by F. P. Lione

  Rooney, Garcia, McGovern, and O’Brien watched with the sarge while they cut him out. I had stepped away from the spectacle to smoke a cigarette. The emergency workers put Russ onto the stretcher, and the sarge told Fiore and me that we would be going to the hospital. Someone from the day tour would relieve us, and we could do our paperwork when we got to Bellevue. Russ from Baltimore would be treated medically first then transferred to psych.

  We took the elevator down with the EMTs. Fiore would ride in the ambulance and I would take the sector car down to Bellevue. I took 34th Street to the FDR drive and made a right, driving along the service road of the FDR into the back of Bellevue to the emergency room. The beep-beep of the ambulance backing in met me when I pulled in and parked the car.

  They took him right into surgery. I was waiting outside the ER at triage when Fiore came out. He got right to the point.

  “Do you want to kill yourself, Tony?” he asked quietly.

  I didn’t answer, just put my head down, not confirming or denying. I walked outside through the automatic doors and lit a cigarette, trying to come up with something to say but couldn’t think of anything. I was ashamed and scared but knew in my gut that Fiore wouldn’t see that as a weakness. I knew I had to go back and face him. I finished my cigarette and went back in. Fiore was still standing where I left him.

  “Tony, do you have any guns at home?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “Sure.”

  “What do you have?”

  “A two-inch Smith and Wesson five shot, my off-duty, why?”

  “You have guns in your locker?”

  “Yeah, a Ruger, three-inch six shot. Why?” I dreaded what was coming.

  “I don’t know what to do about this. I don’t know if I should go to the sergeant.” He looked confused.

  “I never said I wanted to kill myself,” I pointed out as rationally as I could.

  “I know. The Holy Spirit told me.”

  Could that really happen? Fiore was serious.

  “Listen, Joe, don’t worry about it, I’m fine,” I said.

  “You’re not fine! You’re thinking about killing yourself! You spit out the stats on cops killing themselves like it’s your phone number. You drink too much. You have personal problems. Don’t tell me not to worry about it!” He wasn’t yelling but he was right up in my face. He took a deep breath. “Should I go to the sergeant?” he asked quietly.

  “No!” Then quieter, “No way.” If he went to the sergeant, they would take my guns away and I would be labeled for the rest of my life.

  “I don’t want to betray you, and I know how the department is with stuff like this. You’ll be marked. At the same time, I can’t go home today knowing you feel this way,” he said, somewhat calmer.

  I don’t know why I didn’t try to deny it. Maybe I knew he wouldn’t believe me. I tried another tactic. “I just had a bad weekend, but I’m feeling okay now. Don’t worry—”

  “No, I’m not leaving you alone so you can go home and blow your head off. No way.”

  “I—I don’t know what I’m gonna do,” I stammered.

  He held up his hand and put his head down for a minute. He looked up at me, still holding up his hand. “I’ll tell you what, this is what we’re gonna do,” he said. “When we get done this morning I’m not leaving you alone. However you want to do this—we stay at the precinct, you come home with me, or I go home with you. If I don’t think it’s straightened out, I’m going to the boss.”

  “I don’t need a babysitter,” I said. “If I was serious enough, there’s nothing anyone could do to stop me, and you know it.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” he said quietly. “What about that guy in the laundry room? His girlfriend knew what he was thinking and she couldn’t stop him. He had someone who loved him, someone he trusted enough to say he wanted to kill himself, and it still didn’t help. I don’t know what’s going on in your life, but I know that you’re lonely and hurting. If you had anything better to do, you wouldn’t be in the bar with Rooney every day.”

  “So what if I go to the bar? So do O’Brien and McGovern, and—”

  “I’m talking about you, Tony. You’re gonna talk to me. If you don’t talk to me, and if I don’t think this is getting straightened out, I’m going to the sergeant. In fact, we’re going to your house so you can give me your off-duty, and when we get to the precinct you can give me the one you have now and whatever’s in your locker.”

  I don’t know why I wasn’t mad at him. Maybe because I knew he was sincerely trying to help me, not because he had to, but because he cared about me.

  “Joe, I won’t lie to you and tell you that I haven’t been thinking about eating my gun,” I started quietly. “For a minute up on that roof I thought about it. I don’t feel that right now; the thought comes and goes.” This was true—lately I’ve been thinking about it more and more, but I had my good moments too.

  “But Tony, that thought will grow bigger and bigger if you don’t deal with it. Unless things change in your life, this isn’t going to go away. What about Tommy Moffit? No one knew he was gonna kill himself that morning; he seemed like everything was fine. A fight with his wife set him off—things that normally wouldn’t trigger suicide are out of proportion when you’re depressed. Alcohol makes it worse because it numbs you, the consequences don’t seem as big.” He was talking with his hands now, balling them into fists and putting them out in front of him with his fingers stretched open. He ran his hands through his hair and closed his eyes. He looked as tired as I felt.

  “Go home, Joe. You’re tired and you have a family,” I said quietly. “I’m sure your wife wants you home.”

  “Don’t worry about my wife. I’m going home with you or I’m telling the sarge. It’s your call.”

  I shrugged, defeated. “I guess we’re going to my house.”

  By now it was almost 8:00. We didn’t get out of Bellevue until 9:00. On the drive back to the precinct Fiore didn’t talk, just kept his head down. When we went downstairs to change, Fiore took my Glock and Ruger and locked them in his locker. He had called his wife on his cell phone from the hospital, telling her he wouldn’t be home and would call her later. Now as I drove down West Street I didn’t know what to say.

  “Tony, tell me what’s been going on in your life. Is this about your girlfriend?” he asked.

  “Honestly, no.”

  “Tell me about her. What was she like?” he asked seriously. “You said she ran off on you, and that has to bother you.”

  I took a deep breath. “It wasn’t any great love. It was more like someone to pass the time with. I couldn’t see myself marrying her, and I definitely couldn’t see her having kids,” I said sarcastically. I wished I could explain it better. “She was beautiful, she worked on Wall Street at the exchange. She liked money. She never understood why I was a cop; she always said I could do better. I guess being around hotshot stockbrokers gave her a thirst for the high life. I went to the Jersey shore, she went to the Hamptons. We were different.” I shrugged.

  “If you were so different and couldn’t see yourself marrying her, why were you with her?”

  I wasn’t going to tell him it was about sex. I had a feeling that wouldn’t be a good enough reason for him. It was more that I had someone there with me, so that I wouldn’t be alone.

  “Have you ever been in love?” he asked.

  I thought for a minute. Aside from Marie Elena Carlino in high school I couldn’t think of anyone else that ever rocked me. Marie Elena is married now, had three kids and weighs about two hundred pounds. She’s still pretty, and I see her once in a while at Montey’s Deli. But I don’t think I ever really loved her.

  “No, probably not,” I answered.

  He nodded. “So what about your family?”

  “What about them?” I asked cautiously.

  “You tell me,” he said. “What’s going on there?”

  Surprisingly, I told him. About my father and how he stopped being
my father when he met Marie and how much I missed him. I told him about Marie and how I thought she wanted to destroy my family, how she hated Denise and me and loved tormenting my mother. I told him about how much my mother drank and how bitter she was and that I didn’t think she loved me anymore. I told him about my house and that I had to move.

  “Tony, not to hurt your feelings, but living with your sister and brother at thirty-two years old is not exactly healthy. You should be married now, having kids, not in the bars drinking your life away.”

  “I know that, but I don’t want to live alone,” I said. “Working nights, I barely see anyone as it is.”

  “Maybe you should work days.”

  I shook my head. I didn’t see any reason to work days. I liked my tour—more money, less hassle.

  “How much are you drinking?” he asked.

  I paused, wondering if I should be honest. Why not? If he knew I was thinking of shooting myself, I might as well tell him the whole thing.

  “I drink every day. Last weekend after a barbecue with my family I went down the shore. I drank so much I blacked out.” I looked at him. “I woke up in someone else’s house, a woman. I don’t know who she was or what happened. She left me a note to meet her at the beach, but I had no idea what she looked like.”

  Fiore nodded for me to continue.

  “I came home because it scared me. I wound up just drinking at Dave’s, the bar on my corner, for the rest of the weekend.”

  “I don’t want you to drink today,” he said.

  “I don’t know if I can do that,” I said honestly. “It’s been so long since I went a day without drinking, I don’t know what will happen.”

  “You’ll get a headache, be irritable, and maybe shake a little, but you’ll be fine. We’ll work it off.”

  “Work it off?” I said dryly.

  “Trust me—jog, walk, lift weights, whatever. Don’t you lift weights?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Usually.” John and I used to work out on our meal. I haven’t lifted in a couple of weeks. I used to bench press about 250, but I couldn’t do that much anymore. Realistically I could do about 200 pounds. John and I used to do chest and biceps together, alternating the following day with legs and shoulders, then a workout with back and triceps.

  “You have weights at home?” he asked.

  “No, I work out at the precinct.”

  We decided to walk. I was too tired to work out anyway, and I smoked too much to jog. So we walked—a lot. And we talked. I can’t remember ever talking so much to another person in my whole life. And Fiore didn’t talk about himself, just asked me questions and let me tell him what had been going on to make me so depressed. For once I was truthful—no smoke screens or evasions. I didn’t really know him that well, but I told him things I’d never told anyone.

  We started off at my house. He took my off-duty and put it in his bag and zipped it. I made some coffee, and we drank it outside on the deck. The water was smooth as glass, the sun reflecting off the tiny ripples. He loved the house. He loved the view of the bridge and Manhattan and said he understood why I didn’t want to leave.

  I showed him Fort Wadsworth and a ferry leaving St. George. He had never been anywhere on Staten Island, he’d only driven through it on his way to Jersey. I got quiet and depressed again.

  “It’s time to move on,” he said. “Put it behind you like a man and move on. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, God always has something better for us. Sometimes we can’t see it, but you have to trust him.”

  I nodded. “Joe, I don’t know if I can do this without a drink,” I said again.

  He stared at me for a minute, and I thought he was going to give in.

  “Let’s go.” He stood from the lounge chair.

  “Go where?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Let’s just keep moving. Is there anywhere you want to go? Besides the bar, I mean.” He smiled.

  I shrugged. “I guess the boardwalk in South Beach. We can drive there and—”

  “No, we’re gonna walk there.”

  “It’s far, at least a mile from here. Why don’t we drive there and then walk up and down it as many times as you want.”

  He shook his head.

  “It’s about three miles long!” I burst out.

  “Come on, a mile there and another three miles one way will give you eight miles total. You’ll be too tired to drink.” He got up and started walking toward the front of the house. He stopped when he realized I wasn’t following.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “It’s hot out. At least let me change my shirt and grab some water,” I said irritably.

  “Go ahead,” he called back. “I’ll wait for you right here.”

  I put on a tank top and swallowed two Tylenol because I was getting a headache. We walked up to Montey’s, and I introduced him to Fiore and bought two bottles of water. The morning sun was cooking up, and the boardwalk had absolutely no shade. We walked Bay Street to the Coast Guard gate of Fort Wads-worth. We cut through the fort, and I took Fiore to the top of the bluff directly under the bridge and showed him the view. If he wanted to walk, we might as well take the scenic route. We walked down to the beach behind the officers’ housing and walked along the sand until we reached the boardwalk. We had to climb over the fence to get up on the boardwalk, and entered it by the beach club.

  The beach club was a longtime trouble spot that had great pizza and lots of fights. Every weekend underage kids with phony IDs would drink themselves into oblivion, then beat each other bloody until the cops locked them up. I knew this because I used to hang out there when I was a kid. I get pizza there once in a while, but never on a Friday night.

  We walked the boardwalk and bought two more bottles of water from a hot dog vendor. I would have gotten a dirty water dog, but they weren’t ready yet. Once we were back on the boardwalk we started to talk again.

  “What bothers you about the job?” Fiore asked. “I know it’s not the only reason you’re depressed, but it has to play a part. Are you upset because your partner got hurt?”

  “No. I mean, yeah, I’m sorry he got hurt. But no, I don’t miss him as much as I thought I would. John was a good guy, and we were good friends, but the fact that I’m not working with him isn’t why I’m depressed.”

  The truth was, I liked working with Fiore. He was smart and interesting and never wanted to argue. For someone who was so set in his ways about God he wasn’t judgmental. Take last night with me. Anyone else would have just taken my word that I was okay and forgot about it. I never would have expected him to come to my house with me to talk it out.

  “So what bothers you about the job?” he asked again.

  I blew out a breath. “The money—they pay us nothing. They never want to give us a raise.” During our last contract the city gave us a raise proposal that launched a massive “Zeros for Heroes” bumper sticker campaign by the PBA. They actually wanted to give us a five-year contract with a zero percent raise the first two years.

  “I mean, some bosses are good guys, but the ones who aren’t and the brass, they don’t care about us. As long as they get their numbers for the COMSTAT meetings, they just use us. The public hates us, the press hates us, and no matter what we do, they find fault with it.”

  Fiore nodded, so I continued.

  “Everything is negative, I mean, what do we deal with? Drunks, drug addicts, the sewer of humanity night after night, and it never ends. Who’s beating up someone, who’s stabbing someone, who’s robbing someone, who’s jumping off a building, it just goes on and on.”

  “You’re right about all of that. But at some point all cops go through this. Jesus tells a story in the Bible in the book of Matthew about a wise man and a foolish man. And Jesus says that everyone who hears his word and does it, he compares him to a wise man who built his house upon the rock. The rains came, and the floods and the winds beat against the house, but it didn’t fall because it was built on a rock. But
everyone who hears his word and doesn’t obey he compares to a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The same rains came, and the floods and the wind beat against the house, and the house fell.” He put his hands out in front of him to make his point. “It was the same storm that hit both houses. Do you know what I mean?” He squinted. “Do you know what I mean?” he said again.

  “So I guess I’m the foolish man,” I said dryly.

  He chuckled. “No, I just don’t think you’ve really heard the Word. The man who builds his house on the Word of God, his house can withstand the storm. The man who doesn’t build it on God’s Word has no foundation to anchor him in that storm. Is your house built on the Word of God?”

  “Probably not,” I said. Then, “No.”

  “I think now would be a good time to start.”

  I nodded. “I know what you’re saying, but I honestly don’t know if I could be like you.”

  “God doesn’t want you to be like me, Tony. He made each of us unique. If he wanted us all to be the same, we’d be machines, not people. Everything that is good about you, he put inside you to glorify him.”

  “What about the bad stuff?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “We get taught that, from our families or out in the world. He wants us to be separate from all that, to serve him.”

  I shook my head. “Until I met you, I thought religion was for weak or gullible people. I hate those television evangelists who always ask for money. I don’t think you’re either of those things, but I do think it’s easier for you to live that way because you’re married.”

  “I’ve struggled with the same things you have, Tony. I may have been raised going to church, but I had to struggle with not partying and sleeping around too,” Fiore said.

  “But you’re settled with the person you love. You’re not alone,” I said.

  “I understand what you’re saying, but a life with God is a life of blessing, and you’ll never be alone. Right now you can only see life the way you’ve lived it without God, and you see how that’s turned out. But if you really commit yourself to God, you’ll never want to live any other way. You have a decision to make. The Bible tells us in Deuteronomy 19 that God has set before us life and death—if you choose him, you choose life.”