“That’s my house,” he said.
I got as close to the driver’s side door as a person could get without actually merging my atoms with the metal and pulled my hands way back behind my head like an extra set of ears.
“I can walk home from here,” I said. “I could use the exercise.”
“Not yet, professor. I want you to do me a favor.”
“Look,” I said. “Just put the gun down so we can talk for a minute, okay?”
He set the gun on his lap with the barrel still pointed in my general direction and his finger still on the trigger. I think he was afraid I might try to take it away from him. Little did he know how much like distant Pluto that thought was from my mind.
“I like you,” he said seriously. “But don’t try and do anything stupid.”
“If you take a look at where I am, I think you’ll see that it’s a little too late for that particular bit of advice, but thanks anyway.”
He smiled, but the gun stayed where it was. “You’re all right,” he said. “I wish you had been my teacher. I had some bitch named Ms. Duncan.”
“Listen to me,” I said. “You need to get the hell out of here. We both do. There’s nothing here for you. I know it’s easy for me to say, and I know how I would feel if I were in your place, but I’m telling you, I can read your mind like a fucking book and it’s crazy. This too shall pass, but if you go in there tonight, I’m telling you, you will regret it. Let her go. She isn’t worth it and neither is he. You know I’m right.”
“I know you’re right, but that’s my house; that’s my wife.”
“Let the lawyers handle it. Fuck them both. Let’s get out of here.”
“I bet you were a pretty good teacher,” he said.
“Maybe I was — once. I don’t know anymore. I don’t know anything anymore. I just know we need to get the hell out of here before I have a heart attack.”
“I’ve been driving around all day, looking at everything,” he said in a voice that was half anguish, half wonderment. “Everything’s gone, teach. It’s all gone. I can’t do it no more. Go to work, act normal, do my job knowin’ that they’re in there together in my house. Where’s the respect in that?”
I didn’t know what to say, so I said: “You’re a cop. Think about that. Respect that, Officer Paulson.”
“I tried, but it’s not enough. Stay here. I’ll be right back. Got to get a few of my things. Don’t go driving off now.”
“Why don’t you leave the gun with me?” I said.
“You think that’s a good idea?”
“I know it’s a good idea,” I told him.
“All right.” He handed me the automatic. I set it down on the floor between my feet. Officer Paulson got out of the car, straightened himself, and stared at the house for a long moment. Then leaned down, looked at me through the passenger’s side window, and smiled.
“I appreciate you driving around with me. It’s been a real crazy day, hasn’t it?”
“I think so. Go ahead and hurry up. Don’t be in there too long, you understand me? I don’t want to have to come in there and drag you out.”
“You sound like my pops.”
“Stay cool.” I gave him the peace sign, wondering if it still meant the same thing.
He smiled and began walking toward the house. When he got to the porch with its roof hanging down like a eye, he turned and waved at me. I waved back. I watched him knock politely on the door, and I watched the door open slowly. I could see the muted glow of a lit candle through the broken window. The tail end of a white curtain licked out at the breeze.
For about two minutes it was all quiet, and then the shouting started. Before I knew it, I was out of the car. I was halfway to the house when I remembered the gun on the floorboard and ran back to get it — why, I don’t know, since I’ve never shot one in my life.
I was running toward the house when the front door opened and a man came dashing out, a young guy not much older than the cop. He was wearing a black Miami Heat T-shirt and a pair of camouflage pants. I recognized him immediately. His named was Roger Starks. He had played point guard for the basketball team at the high school where I taught. He stopped when he saw me and his eyes focused on the gun. I reached back and stuck it in my pants. Starks turned to glance back at the house.
“Roger...” I started to say.
He began running back toward the house, but I caught up to him before he could pick up speed, grabbed him by the shoulders, and spun him around. He swung his right arm at me and pulled free.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked.
“He told me to go outside,” Roger said. “Said he wanted to talk to her.”
“It’s his wife; he’s got a right. Why don’t you get out of here? If it’s over, then it’s over. Don’t worry; I’ve got his gun.”
“No, man. No you don’t.”
We both jumped when we heard the gunshot. Then, stupidly, we were both running toward the house. The second shot came a few seconds later, like an afterthought to a bad idea. Roger and I slowed down and looked at one another. Roger ran ahead of me, but I knew there was no need to hurry. I stopped and looked around. Shadows had begun to come out of their houses.
“Somebody call the cops!” I shouted.
“Looks like they’re already here, bro!” someone shouted back.
A moment later I heard Roger wailing from inside the house. I walked up and sat down on the steps of the slanted porch and peered up at the stars in the night sky while the boy cried in the darkened house behind me. It came to me that as a boy I could name all the constellations, but now, as I looked up, it seemed to me I could barely remember a single one.
After a while, I went into the house and tried not to look at what I saw. Roger was kneeling on the floor, holding the limp body of the young woman in his arms. The cop was in a leather lounge chair with his feet up, his head over to one side, and there was a splash of blood on the wall across from him. A small silver-plated automatic lay on the floor beneath his outstretched hand. One of his pant legs was hiked up enough for me to see the empty leather ankle holster.
I went over to where Roger was and put my middle and index fingers on the girl’s carotid artery, but it was only a formality. There was no way she could have lived. Together, Roger and I put her on a waterlogged sofa, and I covered her with a comforter I took from one of the bedrooms. I walked over to the body of Officer Paulson and for some reason lay the palm of my hand across his forehead, as though he were a child with a high fever from which he would soon recover, who was napping now and would soon wake up.
I left Roger inside and went back out to the patrol car. It was country-dark and the gondola-shaped moon was the only light. Somehow, after many tries, I got the squad car’s radio working and told the story to a dispatcher. She asked me who I was and where the house was located, and I told her to hold on while I went back and asked Roger for the address.
It took a long time for the police to get there. I left out the part about me driving the patrol car, and instead told them that I had just happened by. They seemed to believe me, but even so, it was nearly dawn before they let me duck under the yellow tape surrounding the house and go on my way. I was more than a bit lost when I remembered the compass in my pocket. I took it out, lined up the needle with the North Pole, and started back toward Homestead.
One man’s ceiling
by Tom Corcoran
Card Sound
I never knew why my stepmother called it the piano room. I never saw the piano or a picture of one and I never asked, so her explanation went with her when she died. The old pine floor measured ten-by-twelve between the front room and kitchen — fine for an upright but too tight for a baby grand. It could have been a dining room except for no table and no real upkeep for thirty years until this morning I’m talking about. Two days earlier I’d cleared it of old booze boxes full of crap like Saturday Evening Post magazines and mildewed utility bills from the ’80s. I knew the mound of trash would piss off the city’s garbage associates, so the next morning I stashed a twelve of malt liquor under the top layer and it all went away, no problem. Now, into my first renovation project, I was harmonizing with Garth Brooks, pouring Parisian Taupe flat interior enamel into a plastic paint tray, when someone double-knocked on the front screen door. At that moment the piano room dimmed — a cloud crossed the sun. I knew only two people who might show before 8:00 on a Saturday. I felt a balls-deep fear that both women had arrived at the same time. I hoped for the best and yelled out for my company to come on in.