Life Detonated

by Murray Moran, Kathleen

  “The judge.” He nodded at a tall man with black-framed glasses who strode past us in the hallway without a second glance. “His name is Alfred Rosenblatt, on loan from Duchess County.” A slow dread started in my stomach. We had hoped for a judge from the Bronx. I’d been there all of five minutes, and I was wearing the wrong clothes and had drawn a judge from out of town. I tried to think of something positive to change the shroud that seemed to hover around us, but couldn’t think of a single thing.

  I had pictured the courtroom like the one in To Kill A Mockingbird, and to my surprise, that is what it looked like. The Federal court for the Busics’ trial had been sterile, an industrial room with tile floors, low ceilings, and rows of benches. The Bronx Supreme Court was a recreated movie set with marble floors and carvings around the ceiling. A gate ran along the front of the room, separating the judge and jury from the defense and prosecution, and rows of benches were assembled like a church with the judge at the altar.

  As I followed Thomas to our table I looked around for Charlie but didn’t see him. Glancing at the Corporation Council, I saw three attorneys deep in discussion. When they looked over, they made no pretense of trying to hide their contempt.

  “Don’t worry about them,” Thomas tried to reassure me, but I was worried.

  “Three against one,” I murmured and wished for Gracie, but for only for a minute because I knew I couldn’t sit beside someone whose life showed on her face.

  “Come alone,” Thomas told me. “The jury will scrutinize you, and we do not need to worry about what they will think about anyone else.” He did not know Gracie, her habit or her history, but I knew better than to bring my sister.

  When Thomas approached the jury that morning, his persona changed. He buttoned his suit jacket and stood to his full six-foot four. Dark and handsome, a lawyer who commanded the courtroom, he seemed to mesmerize the jury with his clear and forthright version of what happened on September 11, 1976.

  “This case is based on two premises,” Thomas told them. “One: the NYPD did not authorize specialized protective gear for the bomb squad, even though special equipment was available and employed by other departments around the world. There was a robot available, a remote-controlled vehicle outfitted with cameras, microphones, and sensors for chemical or biological agents, but they did not have this equipment. There were also special protection suits, flame and fragmentation-resistant, similar to bulletproof vests, which were not used.”

  Thomas paused and walked to the railing. “Brian Murray was forced to dismantle bombs with tools from his own toolbox, wearing street clothes.” I pictured Brian standing before eight sticks of dynamite in a shirt and tie, a vest with Bomb Squad written on his back that couldn’t save him. Thomas looked around the courtroom at the policemen in plain clothes. I followed his eyes and that’s when I saw Charlie, who had entered unnoticed.

  “Two,” Thomas said, as though he had just said “one” a minute ago, “you will hear from Terry McTigue, Director of the International Association of Bomb Technicians and Investigators. As an expert who represents the most prestigious bomb squad in the world, McTigue ordered his men to approach the bomb without full knowledge of whether the bomb’s wiring had been severed. Corporation Council will tell you that the bomb exploded without provocation, that the wires were severed and the device should have been rendered safe.

  “In fact, when the men approached and attempted to remove the bomb blanket, somehow contact was made, causing the explosion.”

  Juror number four shook her head slightly as if to say, what a shame this young police officer died because the department didn’t protect him. Thomas talked for another hour about the explosive device, and never once mentioned the Busics. The blame fell entirely on the shoulders of the City of New York.

  Over the next few weeks, I made up stories about the six jurors, people culled from the same Bronx streets I knew as a child. Juror number one, a Hispanic man, lived in the South Bronx, probably close to Faile Street, and wished he were at his job rather than having to sit at a trial for this redheaded gringa. Number two, a bottle-blonde about my age, dangerously overweight, tried to like me but resented my slim hips and natural red coloring. Juror number three, a man in his sixties, squinted at me, the widow who was trying to worm money from the city. He would be hard to convince.

  Number four, my favorite, and the one who would persuade all the others, was younger than my mother, Irish like me, with auburn curls that she set in rollers every night, and blue eyes that said, I’m on your side. Number five, young and handsome, looked sullen and bored. And juror number six was a black man in a shirt and tie who worked behind a desk and enjoyed the respite of the courtroom from the tedious paperwork that plagued his days.

  It took four weeks for Thomas to lead the jury through the progress of the explosive device, from the time it was discovered in the subway locker in Grand Central Station, through the transport period, to the Rodman’s Neck Firing Range where it was placed in a pit. He explained that the pit was a deep depression in the earth, and during a detonation, the men could climb out of it and take cover behind a wall of sandbags, which is what Terry McTigue, Hank Dworkin, and Brian Murray did.

  He brought in military experts to dispute the theory that the bomb exploded without provocation and presented a mock-up of the cast iron pressure cooker, which was crisscrossed with black tape that held the fake dynamite cylinders in place. Wires came from the bottom of the pot and extended outside it, where an ordinary switch was attached. He told the jury that McTigue’s theory was that when the exposed wires were severed, the bomb would become safe to examine. But it had not been safe.

  On our lunch breaks, Thomas and I sat in a small, stuffy room as he read from his notes and took big bites of an apple. I brought along a ham and cheese, chips, Snickers, and a can of Coke.

  During the third week of the trial, Charlie took the stand. His face was broad and honest, and I willed him to look at me, willed him to remember that night he had come to my house and given me the idea to do just this: sue the city of New York, get the answers I needed so badly for my own sanity.

  But he did not look at me. He answered Thomas’s questions about coming on the bomb squad the same day as Brian, about his friend of six years and the hundreds of devices they worked on together. He nodded and looked at the back of the courtroom when he talked about how he and Brian were similar in nature and background, about the same age, both with military experience and munitions training in the Vietnam War. “You even looked similar,” Thomas said, “the same coloring and build.”

  “Yes,” Charlie answered, and lowered his chin so we couldn’t see his eyes mist up. “We were friends.” I heard he made sergeant, and in the years since I had seen him, he had aged in the way people do when their lives become more significant, a heavier weight on his shoulders, a hardness around his eyes.

  You know what happened, I pleaded with him in my mind. You’re under oath. Tell us. But I knew what he must be thinking, that if he testified the city was at fault, he would be back in uniform, or even in civilian clothes, looking for a job. He had his own future on the department to think about, the ladder he would eventually climb all the way to the commander of the bomb squad.

  “You were part of the team of investigators who examined the evidence.” Thomas raised his voice. “What conclusion did you come to about why the bomb exploded?”

  Charlie didn’t look at me. He turned his head toward the jury and said in a clear voice, “The cause of the blast was inconclusive.”

  I never spoke with Charlie Wells again, and he left the courtroom without saying goodbye.

  __________

  The night before McTigue took the stand was a sleepless one. I lay awake next to James, watching the numbers on my digital radio tick off time. The last time I saw McTigue had been a few months after Brian’s death. I had taken the boys to TWA Headquarters where the Flight Saf
ety Foundation would present me with a plaque for Brian’s sacrifice. But when I stepped into the elevator, there was McTigue, and for a startling moment, I could not help but stare at his piecemeal face. I had never gotten this close to him, and did not realize how damaged he was, one eye permanently pulled down, his cheek lumpy with layers of grafting. At first, he stared at me, and then he stepped forward so his back was facing us, and I watched the numbers rise.

  “What’s wrong with that man?” Keith asked.

  “He had an accident,” I told him.

  McTigue must have heard, because his back stiffened, and he strode quickly off the elevator.

  The room where the ceremony was held was small, and Captain Carey had been called up first, the pilot who had once applauded the Busics for their bravery and commitment. The room erupted in applause when his name was called.

  Then McTigue and I were called up together. We stood side by side and accepted our identical plaques. I let him talk, and held onto the boys, wishing I were home reading them stories, watching cartoons, anywhere but here, next to the man who could not even look at me.

  Later at the reception, I juggled Chris from one hip to another, not knowing who to talk to, when Congressman Mario Biaggi came up and offered his hand. “Mario Biaggi,” he said. I watched him talk to McTigue, and I recognized the swarthy, gray-haired Irishman from the news. I knew he was an ex-cop.

  He shook hands with the boys and then told me, “I am sponsoring a bill in congress that will give fifty thousand dollars to every police or firefighter in the nation who is killed in the line of duty. I’m going to see if I can get it pushed through for you.”

  I put Chris down and smoothed out my suit jacket. Fifty thousand was enough to buy a house, more money than I had ever imagined. Maybe this day had been worth it.

  “I appreciate your efforts.” He looked at me and smiled his politician’s smile.

  “I’ll keep in touch, let you know.” But when his office called again months later, it was to tell me that he did get the bill passed, but it would not be retroactive.

  __________

  The next morning, as McTigue took the witness stand, I felt myself drift into a place of cornered shame as he glared at me with what seemed like the same contempt he must have shown the Busics. His testimony was so convoluted and dogmatic that by the time he left the stand we were no closer to an answer than when we started.

  My stomach tied in knots as I took the stand. My voice barely rose above a whisper when I talked about Brian, and I had to hold on to the seat to stop shaking. Hearing about the explosion that ended Brian’s life made me feel as if it was happening all over again, and I felt torn apart. I spoke about his bravery, his plans for the future, our boys, how I wanted to know the truth of what happened that day. Every juror sat stock still, listening, and I thought of how far I had come since Charlie had first chosen not to answer my question.

  Shaken and unsteady after my testimony, I stayed behind rather than join Thomas for his apple and water lunch. Sitting alone in the courtroom, waiting for our afternoon session to resume, I leaned forward and turned over the glossy photos lying on the table in front of Thomas’s seat. And that’s when I saw the photographs. At first I didn’t know what I was looking at, a scene so gruesome that even the Fraunces Tavern photos paled in comparison. It was Brian, lying in a pool of blood, his jacket shredded, his face unrecognizable, his eyes wide open. This was what Charlie tried to protect me from, these pictures, so awful that they would forever haunt my dreams.

  So this is it, I thought, worse than anything I could have imagined, the full measure of how it feels to lose a part of yourself, the part that makes your heart beat, the part that blossomed when Brian came into my life, the manifestation of the full measure of grief.

  I watched myself as if I were stepping off a cliff. I don’t remember how I drove home to Long Island that afternoon. I took Keith and Chris to my mother’s apartment, knowing I couldn’t look at my sons with those pictures in my head. I couldn’t turn to James to comfort me from the pain of losing my first love, or even to Gracie, who I felt I was losing to Billy. I wanted my mother, and it saddened me to know that for most of my life we had never shared more than a roof and a meal, because now more than anything I needed her comfort, but she didn’t know how to offer, and I didn’t know how to ask, so I went home and crawled into bed and prayed for sleep.

  On Monday morning, I arrived at the courthouse early. One Hundred Sixty-First Street smelled of cooking asphalt. White smoke lifted from the sun-soaked pavement still damp from a morning thunderstorm. As I walked up the steps, I kept seeing those photographs.

  In his summation Thomas told the jury, “Every man on the bomb squad was a munitions expert. The blast was contained in the department’s own demolition pit, and all the evidence was confined in a controlled environment. The world’s finest forensic team investigated the case. The FBI investigated the case. With hundreds of experts and all the evidence, why was the cause inconclusive?”

  Juror number four couldn’t help but nod her head. Yes, you’re right, she seemed to say. Why?

  We waited. That afternoon, jurors filed in ceremoniously. They did not look at me. Even number four, who often gave me sympathetic smiles, did not turn my way. They looked tired, resigned. I thought about James and the hope that when the case was over I wouldn’t have to think about that bomb exploding anymore, I could just love the man who had coaxed me back to life.

  Judge Rosenblatt told us to take our seats. The courtroom seemed to be holding its breath. “I am reluctant to take this decision from the jury,” he said. I could not breathe. “But there is no suggestion beyond speculation that negligence played a role in this tragedy. Officer Murray accepted danger as a risk of employment, and as such, the city is not liable. This case is dismissed.”

  The courtroom erupted. The three defense attorneys shook hands. Behind me I could hear other men congratulating them. I sat at the defense table, stunned. I turned to Thomas. “What does this mean?” He had seemed so sure of himself.

  “It means that we lost,” he said, snapping his briefcase closed.

  He warned me there was no precedence for a police widow to sue the city, and this case would have paved the way for other police and firefighters to sue. I knew there was a possibility we could lose, but Thomas and I believed we had a strong case, and the verdict would have forced the City of New York to take another look at the protective gear that was now available. Now I was never going to know what happened.

  I stood on the steps of the courthouse watching the old Bronx neighborhood, the subway speeding by, women sitting on stoops, a cop walking a beat. Before I walked to my car I noticed juror number four, who seemed to be waiting for me. I had nothing to lose anymore, and walked toward her.

  “We would have voted in your favor,” she said quietly as she reached for my hand. The long wait was over and I had lost, but the jury believed the city was culpable in Brian’s death, and I felt validated.

  At the still point, there the dance is.

  — T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

  Skip the Church

  What I had done came to me slowly over the weeks and months following the trial. While I stayed up late reading books for school about Toni Cade Bambara’s activism in Harlem, the suicide of Sylvia Plath, Doris Lessing’s fight against apartheid, and the fate of Virginia Woolf as she walked into the water with her pockets full of stones, I realized I had, without meaning to, done something radical. Throughout history, women had been trying to find a voice. And even though I lost the lawsuit, I let my voice be heard, and broken a legacy of invisibility that had started long ago.

  “Bill Hutchinson,” I was told by the detective who answered the phone, “is not with the department any longer.” He passed the call instead to Lieutenant Miller.

  “You’ll lose your pension,” Lieutenant Miller said when I told him I wanted to remar
ry. Once again my hands felt tied by the NYPD. “Skip the church,” he said quietly.

  As children, my mother had seen to it we went to parochial school and made sure we attended Sunday Mass, so I knew she would not approve of a fake wedding.

  Instead, I turned to Gracie, who helped me plan the day. I kept thinking of Gracie’s short-lived marriage to Jacky, the bloody veil, the honeymoon with a stoned-out husband. That had never been my fate, but I carried a constant yearning for Gracie to find that high that comes from true, solid love. She functioned well as we made up the guest list and planned a simple reception. She was working nights as a barmaid in a small tavern near the apartment she now shared with my mother and Billy.

  I was by her side a few months earlier when she stood next to Billy dressed in a light blue suit, said her vows in front of a justice of the peace, and then danced to Billy Joel’s “I Love You Just The Way You Are.” Then I held my breath to see what would come next.

  Still, it was Gracie who designed the wedding invitations and helped me choose the off-white dress that hugged my body. She was the one to orchestrate the fib about getting married at City Hall, and the one who made the wedding cake with the slanty bride and groom on top, so that the day almost seemed like a bona-fide wedding.

  There was no aisle to walk down, no “I dos” to speak, and I cannot remember the name of the venue overlooking Northport Harbor, which is now condos, but I do remember dancing with James, our friends and family toasting to our future, and Keith standing to tap a glass with his spoon and give his own toast. He had grown tall and thin like me, his hair a darker shade of red. The room was still as he gave a speech about his new dad: weekends on the boat in Northport harbor, rafting with his cousins, and about the night the wind had been blowing fifty miles an hour, and his dad stayed on the beach all night to make sure the anchor didn’t come loose.