“Hey!”
The shade spun and flapped. Some comfort in its sound.
“Relax. I’ll be right out.” He opened his eyes and reached up and pulled the shade, and a measure of darkness, down to its proper place. The window was completely frosted. Impossible to see through. He crossed his arms tightly about his chest and trembled as he stood. Circled the bed, arranging the bedcovers — folding ends, tucking edges, patting surfaces smooth. Removed two small plastic freezer-storage bags from the nightstand drawer, angled the fingers of one hand, then the other, inside each bag — translucent mittens — and lined the insides of his leather loafers, which were stationed on the seat of a wooden chair, the one black suit he owned draped over the chair back. He set the shoes on the floor between the chair legs. Rubbed his fingers diligently and carefully over a spot on the blazer’s collar. Satisfied, he folded the suit across his forearm and carried it over to the closet, where he squatted and took his thermal underwear and wool socks from a cardboard box positioned in a corner, with two additional suits, one brown, the other dark blue, hanging above it. He set the several items of clothing on the chair, removed the top blanket from the bed, wrapped the blanket around his shoulders, smoothed the bedcovers, and exited the room with the clothing bunched against his chest.
Hands shoved in his pockets, a young officer who had spent the entire night outside Ward’s door — his guardian, his warden — sat slumped over on a stool wearing his department-issued cap and jacket, the side of his young face barely visible in sixty-watt gloom. He turned his head and peered up at Ward, one corner of his mouth twisted as if he were biting down on something. The sight of Ward changed the look in his eyes, the angle of his chin, the red polish of his cheeks. He pulled his hands from his pockets, sat as straight as he possibly could on the stool, and redirected his gaze to a neutral wall.
Ward pulled one side of the blanket tighter about his shoulders. “Fine job,” he said.
The young officer remained perfectly still, like someone sitting for a photograph, though Ward detected a faint suggestion of some forbidden emotion rising into his face.
Some time later, Ward came down the hall in sock feet, fully dressed otherwise, with the blanket shawled (sprawled warmth) around his shoulders; he was saddened to discover the young officer still at his post outside his room, now leaning forward on the stool, hands stuffed inside his pockets, head bowed, teeth chattering. For a moment Ward’s hands and legs refused to carry him forward, his thoughts spiraling around him in dark constricting bands. Before long he was able to move close enough that, if he so chose, he could offer a full sentence or two of consolation and support. However, his thoughts were soft in his wet insides like the tissues of coral but petrified when they hit the air. He settled on putting a firm hand on the officer’s shoulder, a touch that altered the crumpled tone of the other’s body.
Ward entered the room, dismayed to find the police superintendent stretched out on his cot, arms folded, pretzel-like, behind his head — not unlike how Ward himself might have been positioned in times past, less somber days — the mattress sagging under him, white bottom almost touching the dark floor, and the high sack of his belly like some missile preparing for launch through the ceiling. His breathing, a labored wheezing, did not come easy, some beached sea creature. He adjusted himself, turning slightly, bed-springs straining and squeaking. It was only then that Ward saw a white derby adorning his windowsill, drawing attention like some ill-placed trophy.
He stood there, astounded. “Glad you see fit,” he said.
The police superintendent turned his head and looked Ward up and down, disgusted, an action of such surprising force that Ward’s lips parted like a budding flower, shocked air pushing through, the bones in his legs starting to crumble and powder.
“Have a seat.”
Ward collapsed into the chair beside the bed.
“Crazy damn hours.”
“Don’t blame me.”
“No, I won’t. I can send your friend a note of thanks and—”
“He’s not my friend.”
“Oh no? Then how would you describe him?”
Ward sat there watching his other.
“Please, hold nothing back. I wish to make every effort to understand.”
Ward shrugged the shawl from his shoulders, onto the chair back, and bent forward in the chair, the plastic-lined shoes at his feet. “There’s nothing to understand.”
“No?”
“No.” Ward tugged and pulled at the tongue of one shoe as he began to squeeze and wiggle and stomp his foot inside it.
“Indeed. Not surprising, your curious—”
“Why don’t we just go?”
“—range of reasoning.”
“Kindly spare me the sermon.”
“Certainly. They don’t pay me to preach. What would you care to hear? You would care to hear that—”
“We have someplace to go.” He squeezed in the second foot and stood.
“No? Perhaps if I kneeled down and—”
“You wallow!”
The police superintendent popped upright on the bed. “Nothing could wallow like you.” He sat there on the bed staring up at Ward, his still form merged with the coarse sheets, the iron cot, a carved figure leaning out in relief from the substance that contained it. The radiator popped and hissed in the silence.
“Are we going to sit here all day?”
“May you rot.”
“Take comfort in the thought.” Ward lifted his overcoat from its closet hook and slipped inside it, his body mockingly insubstantial, the padded wrapping loose on his frame, like a hospital gown. But the police superintendent made no effort to move, anchored to stubborn place, unable to pull his hate back inside him link by link.
“Why don’t I meet you downstairs,” Ward said.
These words might have gone unheard or escaped comprehension. It was only when Ward started for the door that the police superintendent took to his feet and blocked his exit. He smacked his palms against his trouser legs to rid them of lint, shook the lapels of his overcoat, and brushed his hair flat with the sides of his hands. Then he eased around Ward, lifted his white derby from the windowsill, and fitted it onto his head. He pulled the door open — he did not hurry — and motioned for Ward to go through.
The winter sky was high and clear above short snowbanked streets. White wonder, enormous pancakelike flakes falling to the earth in rapid succession, blown aloft again in fierce twirlings. A car idled in fixed brilliance, all metal and glass. The hard-of-muscle young officer who’d guarded Ward’s room tugged harder at Ward’s elbow. Ward bent into the car and settled back onto the rear passenger seat. The officer slammed his door tight against the wind and cold, and in that instant, the front passenger door hinged open, snow rushing in with malicious intentions of beating the police superintendent to his seat. Only when his door slammed shut did he thoroughly examine his white derby for damage. The young officer took the other end of the rear passenger seat and shut the door. He turned his face to the glass, a full yard of leathered space between him and Ward. A second uniformed officer positioned himself behind the steering wheel and eased the smooth-running car forward. “Coldest day of the year,” he said, black-gloved fingers drumming on the wheel.
Ward thought about what the gloves kept out and all that they kept in. Hoping to calm himself, he brushed snow from his coat, removed his own gloves, and blew hot air into the well of his joined hands. The wipers switched back and forth across the windshield like lascivious buttocks. A second car moved ahead of them, venting smoke. A third car behind.