by Brent Pilkey
He smiled at his feeble attempt at humour, hoping for a smile in return, but he got nothing.
“It isn’t just that, Jack, although I never laid awake at night worrying about you when you worked in 32.”
“I told you, hon, I’m safer now than ever before.”
“It’s not just that!” She snatched her hands away and clutched them in her lap. She began to cry. “You swear more, you spend every day at the gym like you need to become some huge, scary animal and that’s what I’m afraid will happen. It is happening! You told me that Simon warned you about the division, how it could change good men into criminals, how it could ruin lives. I don’t want that to happen to you! To us!”
“What would you have me do, Karen?” he asked quietly. “Quit? I’m a cop. It’s all I know. It’s the only thing I’m good at or qualified for.”
“I’m not asking you to quit,” she argued through her tears. “I’m proud you’re a cop; I just don’t want you to be a 51 cop.”
“Oh.” What was there to say to that?
Karen wiped away her tears and, for a wonder, her parents didn’t jump into the silence.
“Karen, would you do something for me, then?”
“Of course,” she sniffled.
“Stop teaching grade school. Become a university professor like your parents.”
“What? Why? What are you talking about, Jack? I don’t want to be a professor.”
“I know. And I know why.” He took her hands again. “You love teaching the kids, reaching out to young minds and helping them learn. You admit being a professor would be easier —” he saw her parents stiffen “— and it pays more, but that’s not why you became a teacher. I would never ask you to stop doing something you love.”
“I hardly think Karen’s decision to teach grade school is the same as your desire to work in 51. If any —”
“But it is!” Jack snapped, cutting Hawthorn off. “It is the same. Karen, you love being a teacher because you feel like you’re contributing to the world, making a difference. Well, I feel the same way about being downtown. In 32, I wrote traffic tickets, took reports and arrested shoplifters. Once in a while, I did something valuable. For the city or an individual person. In 51, I do that every day.”
He wanted to stop, to collect his thoughts, but he couldn’t. Any opening, no matter how small or brief, and one of her parents would jump in with both feet.
“Do you know what I did just this week? In the last four days?” He spoke to all of them, hoping to convince all of them. “I put two husbands in jail for beating their wives, another for beating his child. And I don’t mean just a little slap here and there. These guys beat their families. One of them used a belt. The seven-year-old girl ended up in the hospital with broken ribs.”
Jack could have left it at that, but they needed to see, to believe. “We caught a crackhead breaking into a woman’s home. He was stealing her jewellery. Most of it was cheap, but it had belonged to her grandmother and losing it would have crushed her. The crackhead probably would have sold all those memories for less than a hundred dollars.”
He squeezed Karen’s hands. “And the best? I identified Sy’s murderer on Tuesday. A warrant has been issued for his arrest. He’ll spend the rest of his life in jail.”
“You did? That’s wonderful.” She threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He laughed at her exuberance. “I didn’t know if it was something you wanted to hear. The job hasn’t been exactly a comfortable topic between us these last few days.”
Then Hawthorn opened his mouth and ruined the moment. “That is wonderful news, Jack, but it doesn’t solve the problem. You’re putting your work and yourself ahead of Karen. A man doesn’t do that to his wife.”
Jack slowly released Karen and turned to his father-in-law. “No offence, George, but I really don’t think what happens between Karen and me is any of your business.”
“Of course it’s our business,” Hawthorn scoffed. “She’s our daughter. Her happiness is of the utmost importance to us.” He tried to calm his voice. “You’re a good man, Jack, and —”
Whatever he had been about to say was drowned out by Jack’s shocked laughter. “A good man? Get off of it. When have you ever treated me like I was good enough for Karen? From the day we started dating, you were looking to break us up. Every chance you got, you put me down. I was never good enough in your eyes. My upbringing, my family, my education, my job. Nothing I was or did ever met your standards. So, please, don’t try that tactic with me.”
George and Evelyn looked dumbfounded. Jack wished he could take a picture, capture their shock at the son-in-law’s sudden turn.
“Jack. . . .”
“Sorry, hon, but it had to be said.” He turned to his in-laws. “Maybe you are right. Maybe 51 is changing me and that’s what worries you. You’re afraid you’ll lose your docile punching bag and have to come up with some other form of entertainment at Sunday dinners.”
Silence. It filled the room, a tangible presence.
“Jack, that’s not fair.”
“It’s all right, dear heart,” Hawthorn comforted. “We understand Jack didn’t mean it. He’s been under a terrible strain lately, but now that he has identified his partner’s killer, he can leave the division with a clear conscience.”
“What do you mean by ‘clear conscience,’ George?” Jack asked slowly, dangerously.
Perhaps Hawthorn didn’t hear the menace in his son-in-law’s voice, or perhaps he was just eager to trade Jack back for his earlier comments. “It’s obvious you feel guilty about your partner’s death. It doesn’t take a trained psychologist — although I have discussed your case with one — to see that you blame yourself for his murder. You can provide a variety of reasons to stay in the division: fulfillment, job satisfaction, personal feelings of accomplishment, but you’re using them to mask the true reason for staying: guilt.”
“Dad, please —”
Jack blindly reached out and placed a calming hand on Karen’s leg. “No, hon. I want to hear this.”
Hawthorn beamed with approval. “Thank you, Jack. As I was saying, you feel guilty because you couldn’t stop the culprit from killing your partner. You feel guilty because you let him escape. You feel guilty because you couldn’t save your partner’s life. All of this is eating at you, but you don’t have to shoulder the entire responsibility alone. A goodly portion lies with your partner.”
Karen tried one more time to stop her father. “Dad, don’t. This isn’t the time or place. Please.”
But Hawthorn didn’t heed her warning. Possibly, Jack figured, he didn’t even hear it. This was between him and Jack now, and in no way was the bridge troll going to let such a golden opportunity to slam the unworthy, uneducated commoner who had dared to sully his daughter pass by.
“As much as you hold yourself responsible, your partner must accept a share of the blame. What was he doing in that laneway alone? How did he allow a lone man, armed only with a knife, to overpower an armed police officer? You see, Jack, you are not the only one to blame. But that can all change now. Now that you have identified your partner’s killer, you can leave the division free of guilt and a need for vengeance. After all, didn’t you say the killer will spend the rest of his life in jail? And aren’t you responsible for that because you identified him? And if he is foolish enough to request a trial to refute the allegations, then you will play a pivotal role in that trial. It will be your testimony that convicts him.
“So you see, Jack, your vengeance is complete. All you need do is allow others to carry it out. You have done all you can to lay your partner’s ghost to rest.” Hawthorn smiled. “I’m sure if you could summon up his spirit and ask your partner —”
“His name is Simon, you asshole! Simon!” Jack was on his feet, his fists clenched in fury. “He was my friend and he was more of a man than you could ever dream of being, you worthless shit. He has a family and friends. He was m
ore than a name you happened to read in the paper.
“Do I feel guilty? Of course I do. Only a heartless bastard like you wouldn’t. If I could have, I would have killed that fucker before he had the chance to kill Sy. And if I hadn’t been trying to save Sy’s life, I would have gladly gunned him down as he ran away from me. You want to know something else? My vengeance isn’t complete, far from it. I pray to God I’m there when he’s arrested, because I swear to you, I’ll blow his fucking head off without a second thought.”
Jack stormed out of the room, grabbed a coat and his car keys, walked out of the house and slammed the door behind him.
Karen caught up to him in the driveway. “Where are you going?” Her voice was cold.
“I don’t know. But I’m not staying in there with them. With him.” He jabbed his finger at the house, as if she needed further clarification.
“That him is my father, Jack.” She folded her arms and pinned him with a piercing stare. “Tell me, Jack, honestly. Were you serious in there? Would you really kill him if you found him?” No need to clarify whom she meant.
Jack faced her squarely, his face expressionless. As were his words. “In a heartbeat.”
She dropped her eyes and shook her head. “I don’t know who you are anymore, Jack, but I do know one thing.” She lifted her gaze and it was her turn to speak impassively. “It’s appropriate your shirts at work are now black. They match the man you’ve become.”
Karen turned and walked into the house. Jack watched her until the door shut behind her, then got in his car and drove away.
Jack had no idea where he was going when he pulled out of the driveway, but it was no surprise when he headed into the city. The drive was a complete blur; he functioned on autopilot as a suppressed anger shattered its social chains and, with a roar of ecstasy, broke free.
Who the fuck did they think they were? Her father, especially. Laying all that guilt shit on him, acting concerned and friendly when Jack knew all Hawthorn wanted to do was break them up. Nothing would please that smug, righteous prick more than Karen leaving Jack and coming home to Daddy. It would be the ultimate put-down, the final confirmation that Jack wasn’t good enough for George fucking Senior’s daughter and never had been.
And Karen, sitting there, taking her father’s side against him!
“‘Leave 51, Jack,’” he mimicked. “‘It’s changing you. I don’t know you.’ So, I have a black heart, do I?” He angrily wiped away a stray tear. “What am I supposed to do? Run away like a coward? Run away while that murdering whoreson is still out there? Fuck that!”
Before he realized it, he was exiting the Parkway onto Richmond Street. He stopped at the red light at Parliament and wondered where the platoon would be. It was pushing eleven o’clock, so the beach party would probably be warming up.
The light changed and Jack took his foot off the brake only to have to hammer it again as three young thugs sauntered in front of his car against the light. He laid on the horn and the one nearest him, a young white guy with greasy hair and ridiculously baggy jeans hanging more than halfway down his ass, gave him the finger . . . with a hand wearing a black leather glove.
Jack slammed the car into park. He was going to make that piece of shit eat those gloves. The three gangster wannabes jumped when he flung open the door.
Jack was halfway out the door when a horn blared behind him, penetrating but not banishing the red haze that saturated his thoughts. He had one foot on the pavement, the other still in the car. His intended targets were staring at him nervously from the sidewalk.
The horn sounded again and Jack cast his red-stained scowl at the other driver. The driver lifted his hands and sunk down into his seat. Jack stalked up to the wannabes and stopped inches from the one with the gloves. The kid was tall; he could have towered over Jack, but he shrank from the rage in Jack’s eyes.
“Why are you wearing those gloves?” Jack snarled, his jaw barely moving.
“Huh?” the kid squeaked. His buddies had retreated a few steps.
“Why are you wearing those gloves?” Jack repeated.
“Ev . . . everyone’s wearing them,” he said tentatively. It’s . . . it’s cool?” The last word squeaked out as a question or a plea, as in Please don’t hurt me, I don’t know what I’m doing.
“The gloves. Give them to me.”
It wouldn’t be till later, when his buddies were relating the story to others, at his pride’s great expense — although they would manage to avoid having to say what they were doing during the whole confrontation — that the similarity to the opening scene of The Terminator would be discerned. Luckily for them, all Jack wanted was the gloves, and he didn’t rip anyone’s heart out.
The kid stripped off the gloves — cheap imitation leather — and handed them to Jack with a trembling hand.
Jack took the gloves and held them up to the kid’s face. “Do you know what these signify?”
The kid shook his head, his eyes locked on Jack’s, fear welding their sight together.
“The gutless coward who wears these — the person you’re idolizing by wearing them — killed a police officer, a good man. Killed him from behind like the coward he is. Do you think it’s a good idea to make a hero out of someone who cuts a person’s throat from behind? Someone too fucking cowardly to face a real man? Do you?”
The kid shook his head again and managed to get out a mousy “No.”
“Then tell everyone you know who wears these gloves they are making a hero out of a fucking, ball-less coward. His name is Anthony Charles and if you ever meet him tell him I’m looking for him. Tell him he won’t be able to hide behind anyone next time and when I do find him, I’ll kill him. And if I ever see you wearing these again —” he slapped the kid’s face with the gloves “— I’ll shove them so far down your throat, the doctor will have to go in through your ass to get them out. You got that?”
“Sh — sure thing, mister. Uh, thanks?”
Jack stepped back, favoured the kid’s cronies with a glare that sent them stumbling, threw the gloves in the car, got in and drove off.
Crossing the first drawbridge on Cherry Street south of the Lakeshore, Jack left the city behind him. Down here, on this man-made splat of land jutting into Lake Ontario, high-rises and towering office buildings ceased to exist. Most of the structures along the grid of roads south of the drawbridge resembled the land on which they sat: flat and broad. There was always talk of developing the area; the Docks nightclub had opened, but beyond that there was nothing much new.
Jack crossed the second drawbridge, a much more massive affair than its conservative cousin up the street. The water beneath the bridge was calm as his tires hummed over the steel grating that made up the bridge’s body. At this hour, on a weeknight, the district was all but deserted. Jack didn’t come across another car as he headed for the beach.
Instead of driving straight into the beach’s parking lots, he hung a left on Unwin Avenue and plunged into the perfect setting for a horror movie. The narrow, two-lane road was paved, but it might as well have been dirt considering the condition it was in. Stunted scrub brush lined the road’s southern flank, hiding a twisted warren of bike trails and footpaths, some official, most not. The other side of the road was a stereotypical slasher-film backdrop: old, shuttered buildings, mostly abandoned, poorly quarantined from the world by rusting chains and decrepit fences. Not far down the road, a solitary smokestack jutted into the night sky like a skeletal finger flipping off the distant city.
The brush opened up briefly on his right to reveal a dirt road — a driveway, really, to a little boating association clubhouse — stabbing arrow straight into the darkness. The streetlights along Unwin were intermittent; the tiny dirt road was nothing but a darker scar upon a dark landscape.
He turned into the darkness and flicked on his high beams. Faint red dots jumped back at him and grew brighter as he approached: the tail lights of parked cars, letting him know he wasn’t too early for the beac
h party. Being too late had never been a concern; it wouldn’t be the first time for the platoon working day shift to get calls from early morning joggers complaining about the vagrants passed out on the beach. Vagrants with badges. If they only knew. . . .
He tucked his aging Ford Taurus in behind someone’s Lexus — bought with paid duties or a pile of court appearances, no doubt — and climbed out into the cool night air. It was a little chilly by the water and he was glad he had brought his old jean jacket. Karen hated the threadbare embarrassment and kept threatening to toss it into the nearest incinerator. Jack pulled its comforting familiarity around him and set off for the beach.
He returned to the car to retrieve the gloves he had seized from the kid. Or would that have been, technically, a robbery? Whichever. He tucked the gloves into his back pocket and went off to find his friends.
It didn’t take long. Before he could see the leaping flames through the thinning bush, he could hear the familiar sounds: laughter, clinking bottles, classic rock playing in the background. It felt like coming home. The anger he had felt when the kid had given him the finger crept back into its lair deep inside him. It went willingly and without complaint; once free, it would never be shackled again. It could now come and go at will.
The natural barrier of brush separating road and sand gradually thinned, then disappeared just before the road came to an abrupt dead end. The secluded cul-de-sac was a choice parking spot for lovers. Except when the cops were having a beach party, that is.
The bonfire was a blazing beacon and Jack trudged through the soft sand to its siren’s call. Silhouetted figures ringed the fire, drinking and laughing like modern-day pagans performing a sacred rite. And, in a way, they were. After-work platoon get-togethers — beach party, wing run, breakfast after night shift, a simple drink-fest at the nearest cop-friendly pub or bar — were a time-honoured police tradition. And a necessity.
Where else could you go to blow off steam about a job no one understood or tried to understand? Where else could you laugh at the criminals, the botched suicide attempts, the everyday violence? Who else but other cops could appreciate such black humour? If you didn’t let loose once in a while, vent the mounting pressure, then you ended up a burned-out cop who didn’t give a shit about anyone or anything.
