Saving Room for Dessert (18 page)

“Okay, alright, it’s right. What’s your point?”

“My point? Oh really, James, c’mon, what’re we doing here? What are you doing here?”

“I guess I’m supposed to be figurin’ out why I didn’t ID myself when I, uh, you know—”

“You guess?!”

“Okay, no guessin’, yeah—”

“Listen, James, and listen carefully. What I’m telling you is, if you want to keep doing this job you say is the only other
job you’ve ever wanted—besides soldiering—you’re going to have to come to terms with what you did. And not only for your chief’s
comprehension, or for your City Council’s comprehension, but much more importantly, much much more importantly, for your comprehension.
Because, James, you’re walking around with a bomb in your mind. And if you don’t start talking about why it’s there, it’s
going to go off again. Just like it did in that alley. And when it goes off again, and if you don’t get it resolved here,
it will go off again, you’re gone. Not only gone from this job but very likely gone into prison. Because you were extremely
lucky this time, James. I know you don’t believe in luck, but even you, when you consider the ramifications of what you did,
I mean, my God, James, you cannot deny—can you?—how lucky you are this guy had a really crummy lawyer? Or that he didn’t die?
People have died as a result of one kidney rupturing, James, it is not that remote a medical probability. Would you like me
to arrange a meeting with a pathologist, huh? So you could hear for yourself how lucky you were?”

“No, thanks. You don’t have to do that.”

“Then talk, James. You want the bomb out of your mind, you’ve got to start talking. We’ve been shadowboxing around this issue
for months—it is the issue, James. It’s why you’re here. And there’s something else you should be aware of. You write a monthly
report for Balzic? So do I.”

“You think I didn’t know that?”

“I’m sure you do now. Do you also know that he calls me after he reads them?”

“I’m sure he does.”

“And are you sure what his reactions have been? To this point?”

“Well … knowin’ him—and I’m not sayin’ I do, understand? But I figure he’s gotta start bein’ a little, uh, a little impatient
with the progress here. Or the lack of it.”

“Bravo, James. Bravo. He signed you up for a year. We’re in the eleventh month. He thought as sharp as you are, it wouldn’t
take half that long.”

“What’d you say?”

“I said, sharp or not—and he is sharp—even the sharpest guy can get to be very dull when his perimeter looks like it’s about
to be breached.”

“Is that what you think I’m doin’?”

“Yes, James, that’s exactly what I think you’re doing. We’ve talked about Vietnam, about soldiering, about growing up with
the Guinnan brothers as your daily nemesis, a twice-daily torment, going to school, coming from school, more if they happened
to catch you out and about after school. We’ve gone around and around and around this, and yet somehow, you don’t seem to
make the connection between the helplessness you felt every day for twelve years at the hands of the Guinnan brothers, who
were much bigger, much stronger than you, and what you saw in this boy’s beating at the hands of his much bigger, much stronger
father— which provoked you to attack him. Without warning, James. An absolute no-no for a police officer.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Oh James, look. You’re a very bright guy. Everybody who was ever your superior whether in the army or in the police training
classes you had to pass in order to be hired-—you were tops in your classes, either first or second. Fitness reports from
your training partners, they’re unanimous in their praise and commendations. Yet here we sit, as we invariably do, after we
have rehashed events I know almost as well as you do, here we are, both of us staring at this apparently impenetrable wall
which you seem unable to recognize is there! Here’s what it comes to, James, yes or no, you want to be a cop?”

“Yes. Absolutely.”

“This is only the second thing you’ve ever wanted in life, correct?”

“Yes, correct.”

“Then, James, listen to me. Imagine it’s not me talking now, but your mentor in Vietnam, Jukey Johnson. Imagine it’s Jukey
sitting here telling you this: James, you want to stay alive as a cop? You’ve got to bring all your senses to bear on this
one issue. Your sight, your hearing, your taste, your smell, your touch, all of them, if you want to stay alive as a cop in
Rocksburg, James, you’ve got to bring them all to focus on this one issue—”

“I wanted to surprise him.”

“You wanted to surprise him?”

“Yeah. I wanted to surprise him. I knew if I said anything he’d turn around. I wanted him to get hit without knowin’ it was
comin’. Like it was … like it was …”

“Like it was what, James?”

“Like it was God. Like it was the hand of God come down to strike him for what he was doin’ to this kid.”

“Like it was the hand of God … okay, James. Now we’re starting to get somewhere. Now of course, all you have to do is explain
to me—and to yourself—why you thought you were, at that particular moment, God’s agent. Why you thought you were doing God’s
work, when everything I’ve learned from you about you says to me clearly that you are a man looking, not for faith, but for
information. In all the months we’ve been talking here, you’ve never so much as mentioned the word
church
—until earlier today. When I suggested that you might’ve wanted to grow up to be a priest, the look on your face was contempt.
In all your talk about combat, you insist it is not random, that luck plays no part, and you never say one word about prayer,
in everything you’ve said about your twelve months in Vietnam, you never mention the word
chaplain,
yet suddenly when you start to talk about what you were thinking when you put your hands on that baton, you talk about surprise,
you talk about making this man think it was the hand of God come down to punish him for his beating of a helpless child. James,
explain please, if you would, because I am now really confused.”

“I … I used to pray all the time when I was a kid. I prayed that God would kill them all, all the Guinnans, their whole family,
mother, father, even their dog. Prayed all the time. When I was an altar boy in St. Malachy’s, I’d be doin’ what I was supposed
to, bringin’ the water and the wine and the wafer to the priest, standin’ there while he was washin’ his hands for communion,
I’d be prayin’, you know, hey, God, please, for me, just this one thing, okay? Please make the cocksuckers die. But he never
did. And no matter how many candles I lit, no matter how many times I asked him, no matter what I did, the only thing I could
do, uh, the only way I could stand the pain, was to know there was no pee in me so at least they wouldn’t have the satisfaction
of seein’ me piss my pants. That was all I could do. So … uh, when my father died, I mean I really liked my father. I felt
real bad for him ’cause he couldn’t do the simplest things, he’d get all outta breath. But every day, man, rain, snow, sunshine,
whatever, he left the house, he walked all the way to the yards, he did his job, he made it all the way home. I respected
that. I admired that. Even though he couldn’t help me, I never lost my respect for him. But when he died, when God took him
to a better place this priest said, I said bullshit. He took my father but he lets the fuckin’ cocksuckin’ Guinnans live?
I said fuck you, good-bye. That’s the last time you’re ever gonna see me. Never went back to church again.”

“Okay. Okay. I follow that. That’s very plain, very understandable. So how did you get from there to the hand of God coming
down to take this man by surprise? How do you get from there to you—you, James Reseta, who at age fourteen says fuck you to
God, and then comes out of his MU with his baton without a word of identification of who he is but with his mind filled with
the idea that he is to be God’s instrument to take this man by surprise and punish him? How do we make that transition, James,
you wanna explain that? Because I’m very interested in that. And because you should be too.”

“I been thinkin’ about it. When I’m alone that’s what I think about. When I’m alone that’s all I think about.”

“So why haven’t you raised it here, why keep that to yourself?”

“Because I can’t put it together.”

“Excuse me?”

“I can’t make it come out right—I don’t even know how to say this, it’s all mixed up. I know I’m nobody’s avenging angel.
That’s the last thing I am—or wanna be. But when I saw that kid takin’ that beating, I thought you motherfucker you. Don’t
you feel big, huh? Well how big you gonna feel when I swoop down on your ass like a hawk, like an eagle, an eagle on a fish,
whoosh, clamp, you’re in my claws, bingo, up and away, your ass in my claws and nothin’ you can do about it, how you gonna
feel then?”

“And what is this, James? Is this the calculated reaction of a police officer to a crime in progress?”

“No.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s the, uh … it’s the emotional reaction of a boy.”

“To what?”

“To somethin’ that happened … a long time ago.”

“No, James, not that long ago. You’re twenty-three now. Five years ago, what was happening to you? Five years, James. What?
Pick any day from your last year in high school.”

“I was takin’ a beatin’ from Teddy Guinnan.”

“Where?”

“In the locker room.”

“Why? What was it about?”

“About? It didn’t have to be about anything.”

“No, James, think this through. C’mon, you’re very close. Don’t stop thinking now. What was it about?”

“It was about him, you know, just fuckin’ with me. Humiliatin’ me. Givin’ everybody a laugh.”

“So what was it about?”

“It was about him … him doin’ what he wanted ’ with me.”

“That’s right, James. Which meant he had the what?”

“He had the power.”

“Exactly, James. He had the power. To do what he wanted. Why did he have the power?”

“Because … I don’t know, ’cause there was nothin’ to stop him.”

“Exactly. For no other reason than there was nothing, and nobody, to stop him.”

“Right. So?”

“So? What do you mean, so?”

“So what’s that have to do with me rammin’ the guy’s kidney?”

“James, come on, put it together. All your prayers—your unanswered prayers. All the times you had no one to come to your defense.
And what have you wanted out of life? To be a soldier, to be a policeman. To belong to a military organization. To belong
to a paramilitary organization. Put it together, come on, man! Yes?”

“I guess there’s somethin’ I’m just not pickin’ up on here, I don’t know.”

“James, a very smart man once wrote that if you have a bulldozer, you don’t need faith to move a mountain. All you need to
know is how to operate it. You don’t understand? You can’t see? You can’t connect that your time in the army, your time in
the police, that what you were building was your own bulldozer? You don’t comprehend that?”

“Well … you put it that way, yeah. Sure.”

“What other way is there to put it, James, tell me.”

“I don’t know. That’s as good as any. I guess.”

“Stop guessing, James! It’s your career on the line here. It’s the job you’ve always wanted. It’s the eleventh month. Your
boss has given me one more month. After that, if in my opinion, you still haven’t understood what you were doin’, you’re gone.
I cannot, I will not, in good conscience recommend that you continue to be employed as a police officer. Whether you believe
in luck or not, you are extremely lucky that that man didn’t die as a result of your unprovoked attack—”

“Unprovoked?! Bullshit unprovoked! He was whackin’ that kid with a piece of rubber hose, that kid was in the hospital for
a week!”

“And his father was in surgery for three hours. And in intensive care for forty-eight hours. And his medical bills cost your
employer’s insurance company a sizable pile of moolah, James. And the loss of his kidney cost that insurance company another
sizable pile of moolah. Do you want to discuss how lucky you are to have a boss who’s on very good terms with the district
attorney? Which district attorney chose not to prosecute you for aggravated assault? And how about the mysterious fact—dare
we call it luck, huh?—that this story received almost no play in the local newspaper? To what do you attribute that, James,
huh? A force of nature perhaps? Wanna explain that to me?”

“Why you so pissed off? Why you—I mean, you’re yellin’ at me.”

“Am I? Really? Maybe it’s because we’re running out of time here, James, and you can’t seem to comprehend that you are one
lucky S-O-B. You committed a first-degree felony and all you got out of it was six months of administrative probation and
twelve months yakkin’ it up with me once a week. The DA doesn’t prosecute you, your boss is on your side, he wants you to
succeed, and I’m pullin teeth to get you to see the root of this tree which bore this illegitimate fruit, so you can keep
doing what you’ve always wanted to do. And what do you do? You sit here and talk about how you wouldn’t allow yourself to
be paralyzed with fear—by thinking wrong thoughts. We get right up on the thought process you were having at the exact moment
you’re committing this first-degree felony and you back away from it as fast as your mental feet can move—and you ask me why
I’m yelling? Tell me, James, why do you think I’m yelling?”

“Guess you’re frustrated—”

“Again with the guessing—of course I’m frustrated. Moses, Moses, burn this man a bush, maybe it will light up his mind!”

“Uh, am I … am I that dense?”

“No, James, you’re not dense. You’re just walking around denying a huge part of your emotional life. And if you don’t stop
denying it, it’s going to bring you down, it’s going to take you away from the job you want, the life you want. Put it together,
that’s all you have to do. Connect the dots. ’Cause if you can’t do that, you can’t have the life you want, it’s as simple
as that. Other people, with a greater responsibility, will prevent you. They will put up roadblocks everywhere you turn. And
if that happens, James, I don’t think you’ll be able to deal with it.”