Calumet City (3 page)

"I was protecting my fellow officers by giving chase, by remaining connected to the shooters."

He jots down my answer a third time. Privately, we call him "Kit" Carson and speculate that a ringmaster position in a wild west show would be the proper promotion.

"And that’s why you abandoned wounded Officers Pike and Jackson?"

"Abandoned?"

"Please answer the question." He’s looking at the blank line where his pen will record the answer.

I repeat the same explanation. He writes it down again, then checks it against the previous lines. His pen taps and he curls his lower lip under expensive teeth. Kit Carson has family money he didn’t earn and a law degree from DePaul on the Northside. If you don’t know the city, Chicago has a "north/south thing"—the city’s separated into two distinct tribal nations by a river engineered to flow backwards from Lake Michigan: the Southside says it works for a living, while the Northside pays five dollars for coffee and has maids to open their windows.

Kit Carson says, "Hmmm…IAD may need to look at this."

IAD is the Internal Affairs Division. There’s no way IAD needs to look at this, and won’t unless Kit Carson files a CR number (complaint register investigation) on me, a complaint that would have the same basis in fact as pudding would in the foundation of the Sears Tower. My mouth moves before I can cover it.

"Gimme a break, Kit. Jesus."

"What?" He two-hands the pen and leans toward me.

"There’s no violation of policy. No ’abandonment.’ All I did was what we’re supposed to. You’d know that if you ever left your desk."

Lieutenant Carson writes that down, taking time to recheck the grammar. "That will be all, Officer Black."

But it isn’t. I can assure you that these interviews are why the police would rather not shoot anyone. And when the interviews are over you cap the twelve-hour, two-death day by dodging accusations from neighborhood politicians waiting outside with the cameras, then doing paperwork until your hands hurt.

My day finally finishes because people like Kit Carson have other things to do and even the bad days end—an elemental truth sane cops learn early, along with no one’s solving shit out here. Little victories are all you get. Live inside those and you can still hope to make a difference…for somebody. Cisco for one. So, I stop by Christ Hospital, where he looks comfy, all dopey and bracketed by two red-eyed parents still tie-dyed from the ’60s (hence his name) and student nurses who like their heroes with bullet holes and sidearms. Good guess is he’ll be milking this for days, pun intended. Eric Jackson has already been released to his wife and kids and a barber shop business he’d rather tell you about than hit the lottery.

The Dan Ryan is its usual twenty-four-hour river of chugging metal and frustration, inching me toward my duplex, and I don’t care—my Celica feels like an armchair and if I still drank, it’d be Miller Time. I no longer partake, other than the miniature bottle of Old Crow I carry as a keychain talisman. See, my Miller Time became somewhat extended—every day all day, age sixteen to twenty. All the Old Crow a little white workin’ girl could hustle and swallow.

Traffic stays miserable to the Y at I-57, then eases for the last two miles to 111th. In between Ramsey Lewis and U2 my radio says both the Cubs and Sox won today. More overtime for everyone; Mardi Gras has come to both sides of the river.

I’ll be home in just blocks and should be smiling. But I’m not, I’m thinking, scattershot, like I do when I don’t get it and probably should: I see the two GDs sprawled on Gilbert Court and frown deeper. Dead teenagers—even GDs with machine guns—tend to mar a day’s "little victories." I also see two white guys with gasoline in a part of town where white guys, even ComEd workers, need armed guards. They filled the basement with gasoline…
Shiver;
I’m not a big fan of basements…and God knows we don’t need a multi-block ghetto fire like in Philadelphia.

I make a turn without looking. No way I knew the body in the wall, but her terror’s familiar enough. My hands change position so I can’t see the scars on my wrist. I make three more turns on residential streets; the last one avoids Tripod the neighborhood poodle.

There’s a parking place at my curb. God has shined on me at last. I kill the engine, take a deep breath that doesn’t taste like city, and I’m finally a civilian.
Get me Dorothy’s red shoes and a parasol
. Out front, my flowers look great, especially the marigolds. My marigolds have everything but major medical and a Social Security number.

I turn and consider my street; it’s crowned more than normal and when it storms the rain rushes to the curbs. "Quaint" you might call it, little bungalows and little lawns, about half old people and half Chicago cops or firemen. Mount Greenwood. It even sounds quaint. The younger guys with power mowers mow the widow ladies’ lawns. The trees drop leaves the size of catcher’s mitts. If they still delivered milk twice a week, my street would be the milkman’s favorite.

I reach to key the lock and—

Son of a
. Beneath the CPD star and the voodoo doll hanging from the knocker my door’s a B&E. The clothes bag drops out of my hand; I draw, step through. Instantly
my
living room’s gun-sight narrow and threatening, nothing in it mine.

Who’s here? How many?

My heart adds beats. Both hands on the pistol. I step slow, cocked forward to fire—kitchen, clean. Bedroom. Clean. Bathroom. Clean. Closet, pantry, under the bed. Clean. My second pistol’s in the drawer where it’s supposed to be. Porch, backyard. Clean.
Motherfuckers,
this is
my
house.

Neighbor?

I run out front and pound on Stella’s door. Stella’s a home beautician and too old to hear her own radio. I pound again, get nothing, step back to kick in the door and it opens; Stella looks more confused than usual. Probably the gun and my foot in the air.

"You all right, Stell?" Beyond her shoulder there’s—

She squints and says, "…Ah, fine?"

"You are?"

She feebles up her usual grin and reaches for the blond ponytail exiting my Cubs cap. "Tricia, such pretty blue eyes, but your hair. Always such a fright. You’ll never get a man."

Relief. We’re back to the basics. I holster the pistol that Stella doesn’t acknowledge. Next will be a comment on the Cubs fixation—a distinctly Northsider trait that’s not too popular on our side of the river. Or else she’ll say my work clothes do
nothing
for me. She goes with the clothes. "Tricia, no man wants a wastebasket for a wife."

"Stell, honey, did you happen to see someone by my door?"

She steps out past her screen and looks at mine. "You should fix that, Patti. What if company came?"

I nod because it’s easier. "But did you see anybody? Today?"

"Busy, busy." She reaches for my hair again. "We’ll fix you tomorrow."

One of our neighbors is in Stella’s chair with the hairdryer space-helmet on. She smiles; I smile. Stella closes the door in my face. I step around my broken door. Front door. Not my back door. A choice that demonstrates a level of brazenness one associates with drug-induced stupidity or knowledge of the neighbors.

Inside I check stuff that matters.

Jezebel and Bathsheba are swimming like champs. Not doubt they saw the intruders but goldfish make shit witnesses so I don’t ask. My TV’s still there, the stereo too. Strange, both are hophead magnets. I had a John Coltrane CD on last night and its case is where I left it. The Johnny Cougar album is still fronting my LP stack—the last one before he went back to John Mellencamp.

My living room seems unmolested. This is not true of my bedroom. My bed’s mussed. The perps sat on it, facing my dresser. Then probably stood—
assholes
—and looked close at the pictures wedged into the mirror’s curved frame. Pictures that take up so much mirror there’s no reflection, pictures of me caked in mud, arm-in-arm with rugby teammates Tracy Moens—a hardass, max-competitive, prima-bitch reporter with the
Chicago Herald,
and Julie McCoy, my best pal and owner of the L7 Bar.

Pictures of me with my TAC crew at CPD picnics, Cisco and Sonny and Eric Jackson trying to look all gunfighter. I can’t help the grin that crosses my face. They are
da boys
—"the Magnificent Seven" if you count me, alpha-male hell, but I love them. Even Sonny Barrett if I don’t think about it too hard. They and Julie are the brothers and sisters I never had.

I have lots of pictures and can’t tell if any are missing. Three for sure aren’t. One’s the superintendent of police in full uniform when he was the chief of detectives. Then there’s me and ’60s all-star Ernie Banks at Wrigley Field on fan day—
how cool was that?
Me and Ernie talking home runs and…. And there’s a beautiful baby, a day old and pink. His picture has yellowed with years, taped to the mirror at eye level. PANIC. I check behind the mirror. The envelope’s still there, still yellowed too, still taped. The deep breath helps—

A quarter inch from my Kleenex box there’s a dust line. I stare, reliving the morning: Did I bump the dresser, sit on the bed? I check the second pistol again. Nope, we’re okay; it really is in the drawer. That stops me. Wanna explain why we do a B&E and don’t take a gun? That’s like leaving a bag of gold. Pistols are illegal inside the Chicago city limits, hence they bring big dollars from the fences and street gangsters. The only way we left this is if we didn’t see it.

And the only way we didn’t see it is if we didn’t look.

Then why the hell break in here in broad daylight?

Which is now gone. I’m supposed to be practicing at Grant Park right now, downtown by the lake—we have the big game this Saturday against the Bay Area SheHawks. My rugby cleats and kit bag are in my locker at 6 where I left them. Exhale; shoulder sag. I’m way too tired to deal with repairing the broken door locks or this…this witless B&E. No-showing practice when my friends depend on me won’t work either; ditto spending the night alone with two dead teenagers and a manacled woman in the wall.

I strip, figuring to don the rugby shorts and jersey a respectable fly half would wear (sans the prissy-ass eyeliner Tracy Moens will be wearing), then quit for two reasons—my rugby gear’s not here—duh? And no real desire to participate in the world of the living. I grab unironed jeans, my pistol and star, refind the car keys, and feed the fish.
Love you girls: Promise we’ll do water world on Sunday.
I know, I know, filling the bathtub for their weekly excursion may seem stupid, but it’s no different than taking your dog to the park. I even have underwater props. And the happiest goldfish in Chicago.

And I’m gone, heading east to anywhere. Lights veer in behind me, filling the mirror. In the glare I see that basement, the fingernail ruts clawed into the wood, the expressions on the firemen’s faces…. Bony fingers reach for me—
Stop it
—like a B horror movie, but I don’t go to horror movies. Denial’s my copilot; I’m an expert at burying the day’s depravity…except there’s my wrist and the scar; and there’s the bony hand—

Horn. LOUD. Shit! Brakes—miss the guy’s fender. Jesus Christ. Sorry. Sorry. Get a freakin’ grip, Patti. Two hands on the wheel. Deep breath. Steer…
Doing fine, doing fine. You’re a cop, remember? A gunfighter. Patti Black.
The
Patti Black, okay? You know how to drive. So I do and a ghost whispers,

"Chinatown" to the back of my neck.

   Rugby practice is five minutes from over when my Celica decides to stop at Grant Park. Why it drove here I don’t know, but now that I have, it’s best to make an appearance. The younger girls on the sidelines nod, less than pleased with my absence but not inclined to push it. Last week I played with them in the She-Devil 15s tournament and not particularly well, something a brave few mentioned when we lost. My excuses weren’t good so naturally I made several, including being thirty-eight.

They toe the grass with their cleats and continue talking with their significant others, mostly about the assassination attempt on the mayor. Their theories range from
Ryan’s Hope
to
The Godfather
in complexity. Me, I’m voting for the same "lone gunman" who shot our Mayor Cermak back in the ’30s and JFK in the ’60s. Lone gunmen, like serial killers, have earned wide acceptance in the media and general public. If you don’t have a suspect in twenty-four hours, either of those fits like twenty dollars does "Hey, baby" on Soul Street.

One of the rugby girls isn’t trading theories—it’s my stellar teammate, Miss All-Everything redhead, Tracy L. Moens, known to her fellow reporters as the Pink Panther. It’s not a compliment. Tracy has the body language of an anchor relay sprinter already set in the blocks and the compassion of concrete on a cold day. I want her and Sonny Barrett to date, drink heavily, and maim one another.

She tosses the ball away but stays at the sideline and smiles like I’m the only person she ever cared about. "Tough morning, huh?" It’s likely she’s the only one here who knows about the GD shooting on Gilbert Court.

I nod, then wince at the hamstring I’m attempting to stretch instead of talk to her.

"Care to talk about it?"

I stare. We also have an unwritten rule, Ms. Moens and I. No work stuff at practice or matches. Anywhere else is fair game. But not here and not now. She only forgets that when it’s important to her.

"BASH is gonna be a bitch, Trace. Let’s focus on them."

"Thought I’d ask." She flashes the reporter smile that conveniently hides her sharpest teeth. The others are perfect.

My pal, Julie McCoy, hasn’t spoken to me yet because she’s busy doing what I’m supposed to be doing. Rugby’s her whole life since the motorcycle wreck in Nice ended her cello career. My teammates finish running lines and plays and Julie finally appears. She starts by appraising my street clothes.

"Damn, Patti, forget how to play?"

"Technically, yeah."

"Tracy looked sharp tonight. She’s younger though."

I add, "And prettier."

"That too. Lots more money, boyfriends. Really something, isn’t she?"