Interstate (26 page)

What do you do when two doctors or a woman and man in white hospital coats who look like doctors or hospital officials approach you with what you know, by their expressions and slow walk and shoulder slump of the man that you know's unnatural for him except in situations like this, is the worst news possible? Not “news,” just the worst information—not that, either. Just with the worst thing that's ever happened to you, could happen to you unless they were about to tell you that both your children died or couldn't be saved. Seeing your kid shot and then being told she's dead by someone in a position to know, are two of the—the two worst things that can happen to you, or hearing she was shot or in a terrible car crash or a fire, for instance, and hurt very bad and might not survive and then later that she couldn't be saved and died. Those two; those are the worst. Or that she's got an incurable disease and has only two weeks to live, three, a month but no more—two, but that's all: those might be better to hear, compared to the others, but maybe not. You haven't experienced those so you don't know. You say to them “Don't say anything, I can tell it's the worst news possible. Not ‘news'—not ‘information,' either. Just the worst thing, period. I don't want to hear. See my ears, see my eyes?” You clamp your eyes shut, cup your ears. “For it can't be, right? Please, for God's sake say anything to me but what you're about to, if you have to say anything.” “Well, we…” the man begins. “Look at me in a different way too. That she's okay—that kind of look and words. Or she's going to be or chances are still okay to good for her surviving or some other things from you like that,” and the woman says “We wish we could, sir, all of us,” and the man says “We did everything humanly and technically possible for her, Mr. Frey, and with the best medical equipment and professional expertise available in any hospital in the state. And there exists no better equipment and staff anywhere, and they all just happened to be here for a staff meeting at this particular time. But when it comes down to it”—“Didn't you hear me? What'd I just say?”—“we got her much too late, I'm sorry.” “Much too, much too,” the woman says. “We all share your grief.” You raise your hands—you want to pound the walls with your fists, get down on the floor and bang it, throw things, push people around, scream some meaningless sound loud and long till your breath gives out—wiggle your fingers and keep wiggling them faster and faster in front of you while saying “Oh, what am I going to do, what am I going to do?” They look at your wiggling as if they've never seen this kind of reaction to what they've just told you. Your daughter, you think. Where's the other one? “Where is she?” and the woman says “She? The one who succumbed? Still in the room down the hall but we seriously advise you not to go to her just yet. Things need to be done with her, and you're not—” and you say “Not she, not Julie, but my other daughter, the older one. Why can't I remember her name all of a sudden? Starts with a what?—I can't even remember that, the first letter. I've never forever—I've never forgotten it ever. I've called her ‘Julie' by mistake lots of times when I was intending to call her by her own name. And ‘Lee,' I've called her, which is my wife's, just as I've done to Julie and Lee with Margo's name and Julie's for Lee's and vice versa—‘Margo,' that's who. So where is she?” Then “Oh no, I can't take this, it's the worst truth imaginable, possible, portable, execrable, inexcusable, none of those, call it quits,” and your head's dizzy and stomach feels sick as if you've got to shit, bowels hot and knees weak and your legs, arms, fingertips, every part of you hurtles and whirls and you want to collapse and spill, when you hear someone yell—your eyes are closed now and you're going—“Guy's absolutely green, catch him,” and you're grabbed as you fall, hit the ground anyway and black out and next thing you're lying on a soft bench, head up into a metal dish, you've made in your pants, kaka, vomit, piss, you don't care but the mix stinks, smelling salts held close to your nose, your head bolts and chin clips the bottle, “Get it away,” you think and slap at the hand holding it. “Leave me be. I'm all right. I just want to stay passed out for good,” and a man says, not the doc, “Sir, Mr. Gray? Listen to me if you can. Your daughter Margo's fine, being attentively looked after by the staff. The police, who think this urgent, would like you to answer some very important questions about the crime. I'm only doing what they ask, sir, so may I help you up?” and you say “Get me pants, get me pants, I can't see people like this.”

How do you sit and answer questions from the police? How do you just listen to them when they're talking, know what they're saying, understand what to answer, provide them with details, descriptions, an account of, facts? What the fuck stops you from jumping up and running out the room and beating your head against a wall? Pulling at your hair till it comes out, smashing your nose with your fist, scratching your scalp till it tears, breaking some mirror or glass—just running through a glass door or hurling yourself through a window or just at one and slashing your neck and wrists with a sliver the shattering makes? They've brought you to a room—“This is a doctors' conference room,” a police detective says, “but it's all right for us to use it long as we like, though we want to be brief, faster we get after the bastards the better—have a seat, sir—is that one comfortable enough?—would you prefer mine? But we're wasting time. Let's get right to business.” You wondered when they escorted you here “Is the room she's in anywhere near? Could it be right next door and I don't know it? Is someone with her? She shouldn't be left alone. Suppose she awakes? Don't be ridiculous.” The doctor from before had pointed at a hall when he talked about her but you're all turned around in this hospital, this corridor might only be for conferences and offices and a common staff room for breaks, that corridor for surgery and dissections. “Autopsies” is the word. You sat. Big as she is, they wanted her there for what she could offer, and she sat on your lap. You mean, big as Margo is, and she's also big for her age, second-tallest girl in her class—Julie was small in both categories—she sat on your lap. But how do you just sit there without wailing, talking to yourself, going crazy? Because it's too soon for you, right? Too soon to say “Yes, no, that'd be an accurate assumption, they were this feet tall, weighed in about six-eighty.” But you're expected to answer, aren't you? You agreed to come in here to, didn't you? They…you…they made it seem essential, you felt you had to. You've always been obedient to the police. This goes way back when you were a boy, afraid of them, and you know what you're here for—to answer things that'll help catch the bastards, as the detective who's asking keeps calling them. “I'm sorry, young lady, but it's hard to keep back what I feel about them, and it's not such a dirty word.” And to you: “We want, as you must, to catch those filthy bastards and roast them, fry their behinds good, which we can now do in this state, thank goodness, unfortunately only with lethal drugs.” Margo asks what's “lethal” and you say “Later.” “So, we need your help, sir, young lady,” when just about all you can do right now is think of Julie and important things you haven't done yet. Like what? Like call your wife about your girl being shot dead. So, so, what're you going to do, call soon? Right after this? Before you see Julie? For another thing you must do is see her before she's taken away to be examined by the police doctors and perhaps changed irresomethingly. No, they'll do a clean job and there's no reason for them to touch her face and you won't see the incisions they make for they'll be under her burial clothes. But you don't want to see her again after you see her today, do you? No, no open casket, but at the last minute you probably will ask for it to be opened, even if your wife doesn't want to look, so you can take one last quick one, or a long one, so long that the funeral people will tell you they have to close it now so they can start the ceremony. “Please, Mr. Frey, your daughter Margo's answering us just fine, but can you concentrate a bit more on our questions, we want to go after those hyenas tonight.” Possible height and weight or let's say, since you never saw them not seated, size and shape of the men and definitely their skin color and complexions and shades and any particular marks, scars, smudges, tattoos on their faces and hands and arms or anywhere and distinguishing features like big ears and fat lips and slanty eyes and large Adam's apples and anything around their necks or on their chests, crosses, stars, ankhs, jewelry of any kind and on their fingers and wrists like watches, rings, bracelets and ID's, cuffs up or down and with cufflinks, and their ages, hair, voices, facial fuzz of any sort including sideburns, eyeglasses, sunglasses, mannerisms, gestures, whatever seemed even minutely unusual to you or the norm, clothes, color, style, design, buttoned, zippered, tight, loose, good condition or bad, hats, ties, gloves, even—suspenders, epaulets, earrings or studs, maybe something through their noses, bandages anywhere or adhesive strips, patches on their clothes, hair curling out of or above their shirts, big foreheads or like pushed in, what kind of smiles and laughs, any obvious dental work or tooth gaps or decay, some of these creeps have front teeth with diamonds in them and platinum- or gold-trimmed which if they had smiled right at you you would have seen, any chance of recalling the color of their eyes? They want them to remember everything about the men and their car, the make, shape, if raised like dune buggies, logos and stripes, how many doors, were the windows clean, rolled up electronically or by hand, radio music or just boppy patter from a radio or tape, overhear any station's call letters, you never know but that can pinpoint where they were heading or coming from, anything hanging from the front mirror like baby shoes or oversized dice or lying on top of the dashboard like a Mary or Christ statue or even a paperback and if so, title or what the cover looked like, tires: white-rimmed, fancy hubcaps, license plate of course, anything on the roof or attached in back, their car hauling a trailer, you wouldn't believe it but some people have even forgotten to tell us that, scratches, dents, horn sound, and the gun: color, shape, report the shot made, did it look like this, or this, this, showing photos of handguns, then of cars, none of them is it though the car's color is like this one, as if just painted a bright white, was the muffler noisy or any other parts of the car not seem all right, the men's or just the gunman's accent, any speech impediments or problems and any special phrases and foreign words and obscenities repeatedly used? While you periodically drift to ways of dealing with those guys if they're caught. “And they will be,” the detective said, “make no mistake about it. I mean, I can't give you my word on that, but they have to be, don't they, but not without your full help.” You'll get them during the trial. First day of it before you have to testify yourself about what happened, but how will you be able to do that? “There they are, I recognize both of them, they killed my little girl, I could never forget their faces, except when they were driving alongside us they had sinister grins or big smiles,” though who knows if they won't have them at the trial? In other words, you'll deal with them soon after they're brought into the courtroom. How? You'll wear a fake mustache or by then grow a real one and maybe a beard and comb your hair in a different way or let it grow long or cut it very short or maybe get a wig or just a hairpiece to cover your bald spots. In other words, disguise, so you won't be recognized, by reporters, for instance, for there's sure to be a news story or item about Julie today and they may want to follow it up, and people in the prosecutor's office who will have probably interviewed you by then or at least seen you for various reasons a couple of times, and any of the police here who might be at the trial. You'll sit in the spectators' section, but fairly close to the front, and then, right after the judge's call for a recess or a five-or ten-minute break for some legal question to be settled, when a lot of people will be milling around—in other words, when there's a little confusion or commotion or just movement and everyone doesn't have to be in his seat—you'll walk up front with a hidden gun, if you can get one, and you should be able to with so many illegal guns around and your willing to pay ten times the street price for one, or just legally in another state if you have to, and shoot them both in the head. Bing bing, like that, one shot each through the middle of the skull if you can do it or inside the ear and then, when they're on the ground or staggering, though one in the head should knock them flat down, and if the gun hasn't been wrestled away from you, more shots into them but only if you're sure, as you should be when you first shoot them, that nobody else will get hit, and closer to the head or heart the better. If a guard or someone else approaches you when you're walking down the aisle or tries to stop you by saying something like “That's as far as you're permitted to go, sir,” you'll run to the front, dodge the guard or whomever and maybe several others some way and jump over the barrier separating the trial area from the spectators' section, if there's one, and the men will probably be turned around by now to the uproar, and you'll shoot them in the head if you can or the face. If you can't get a gun on the street and there's no time to go out of state and wait the mandatory period for a legal gun, or you get one one way or another but metal detectors prevent you from bringing it in the courtroom or courthouse, and you'll check all that out before, you'll get two icepicks or something long, spikelike and needle-sharp and do the same thing during the recess or break and quickly stick them into their necks or backs or one after the other into their skulls or anywhere you think would be the best place to kill them with one jab or if that doesn't work out then at least to maim them for life, killer first, driver next, for you hate the killer most and want to make sure to get him if you've only time to get one. Or you'll wait for them outside the courthouse after the first day of the trial, if you get a gun but can't get inside with it and know they'll be coming out at a certain place—you'll check on that too, pay someone for the information if it can be done without raising any suspicion to you—you'll say you're an amateur or art photographer who specializes in candid crime photographs—and when the men come out with their police escorts you'll go up close as you can to them, but in disguise, and say “Hey, Joe,” or whatever the killer's name is—“Sly” or “Zippo” or something if he's got a street name—to get him to stop for a few moments and maybe turn all of his body to you so you can get a clearer shot, or “Hello, I'm a reporter”—of the
New York Times
, of the
Wall Street Journal
—and if you can you'll pay for some kind of phony press credentials and display them on your jacket or better yet, since a reporter from one of those papers may be there or from any other you got credentials for, wave them—“and I'd like to ask these gentlemen some quick questions if the police don't mind.” Or you won't say anything. You'll just stroll up to them and their police escorts as if you're a curious observer, with a “Hey, what's happening?” kind of face, or just as some idiot who gets a kick out of gawking at celebrities, even murderers, and shoot them in the chest or head. If they're brought out separately you'll wait for the killer, if he's not the first to emerge, and aim the gun at his head, or at his heart and downward if someone's behind him, since if the bullet goes through him you don't want it hitting anyone else but his friend, and shoot several times till you're sure you got a couple of good shots in. Then when he's on the ground and if you're not overpowered by the police yet, you'll fall on top of him and shove the gun barrel into his mouth or against his ear or into it far as it'll go and shoot again. If you can't get them inside the courthouse or right outside it that first time you try, you know you'll never have another crack at them again. Bumper stickers you can remember, the police say, decals on the windows or anything else like that you saw? Special beaded seat pads that some people use for back comfort on long drives. Scratches, dents, paint discolorations, but they've said that. Then they show you a book with many more car pictures and you identify what you're almost sure's the right one. Margo says it's not and you say “If this one's not it then it comes as close to looking like the car those guys were in as I can get. Just that ought to be of some help.”