daily newspaper too closely, brooding about current events too deeply,
and spending far too much time watching television news. Wars,
genocide, riots, terrorist attacks, political bombings, gang wars,
drive-by shootings, child molestations, serial killers on the loose,
carjackings, ecological doomsday scenarios, a young convenience-store
clerk shot in the head for the lousy fifty bucks and change in his
cashregister drawer, rapes and stabbings and strangulations. He knew
modern life was more than this. Goodwill still existed, and good deeds
were still done.
But the media focused on the grimmest aspects of every issue, and so
Though he tried to leave the the TV off, he was drawn to of the
latest tragedies and outrage the hottle or a compulsive yambl citement
of the racetrack The despair inspired by the news was a down escalator
from which he seemed unable to escape. And it was picking up speed
When Heather casually mentioned that Toby would be entering third grade
in a month, Jack began to worry h drug dealing and violence surrounding
A les schools He became convinced they ing to be killed unless they
could find a way, in spite of his financial problems to pay private sc
h t such a once-safe place as a classr d ngerous as a battlefield led
him in f I t the conclusion that nowhere was son. If Toby could be
killed in school, why not on his t playing in his Own front yard? Ia
overly protective parent, which he had never been before, reluctant to
let the boy out of his sight. h fifth of August, with his return to d
way and the restoration of a møre t hand he shouldhave experienced p d
but the Opposite was the case. ting to the division for reassignme eat
even though he was at least a ving off a desk job and back on the li d
he had concealed his fears and P sions from everyone That night he
learned differently In bed, after he turned off the lamp, he worked up
the courage to say in the darkness what he would have been embarrassed
to say in the light: “I’m not going back on the street.”
“I know,” Heather said from her side of the bed. “I don’t mean not
just right away. I mean never.”
“I know, baby,” she said tenderly, and reached out to find and hold his
hand. “Is it that obvious?”
“It’s been a bad couple of weeks.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You had to go through it.”
“I thought I’d be on the street until I retired. It’s all I ever
wanted to do.”
“Things change,” she said. “I can’t risk it now. I’ve lost my
confidence.”
“You’ll get it back.”
“Maybe.”
“You will,” she insisted. “But you still won’t go back on the
street.
You can’t. You’ve done your part, you’ve pushed your luck as far as
any cop could be expected to push it. Let someone else save the
world.”
“I feel …”
“I know.”
“… empty …”
“It’ll get better. Everything does.”
“…
like a sorry-ass quitter.”
“You’re no quitter.” She slid against his side and put her hand on his
chest. “You’re a good man and you’re brave–too damn brave, as far as
I’m concerned. If you hadn’t decided to get off the street, I’d have
decided it for you. One way or another, I’d have made you do it,
because the odds are, next time, I’ll be Alma Bryson and your partner’s
wife will be coming to sit at my side, hold my hand. I’ll be damned to
hell before I’ll let that happen. You’ve had two partners shot down
beside you in one year, and there’s been seven cops killed here since
January. Seven. I’m not going to lose you, Jack.” He put his arm
around her, held her close, profoundly grateful to have found her in a
hard world where so much seemed to depend on random chance. For a
while he couldn’t speak, his voice would have been too thick with
emotion. At last he said, “So I guess from here on out, I’ll park my
butt in a chair and be a desk jockey of one kind or another.”