Post by hoosier on Nov 12, 2005 14:56:04 GMT -5
I posted this on ShadesofJustice site back in September. It was my first try at fanfiction. I thought I would post it here as well. It takes place towards the end of Marlon's Brando. Enjoy!
As a cop, I thought I had pretty good listening skills. You pay attention to what is or is not being said. Some people are nervous and lie, some are guilty and lie. Some look you in the eye and lie on a stack of Bibles that they're as pure as the driven snow. Well--I can't look anyone in the eye anymore. Can't see the nervous gestures or the slick of sweat on the upper lip or how their eyes will look anywhere but at you. Body language has a lot to do with reading a person. That's shot to sh*t now. I had gotten pretty good at reading people, knew when to keep firing off questions and when to sit back and let them tell their story. My hearing has become sharper since I've lost my sight--one compensation, I guess. At least it didn't hurt my being a cop. I pay even closer attention now to what is being said--or not being said, so yeah, I figured I had good listening skills.
But, sometimes people fool you. Well, maybe not fool you but you can't quite pin them down. This case was one of them. Two women attacked and z's slashed on their faces. We were sure Leonard Mattus was involved but he's doing a life sentence and why would he have his own sister raped? Just because she stopped visiting him? Was it Marlon Condell, a mousy little guy with no violent history, or was it Mark Watt, Mattus' enforcer on the outside? Turned out it was Condell, who had been raped by Mattus in prison and this was his revenge. The worm had turned--big time.
This case really had me going. I often see pictures in my head of the crime scene--trying to get a visual on something I can no longer see--but I kept seeing Christie beaten, raped, slashed. Was it because I didn't think I could protect her anymore? The night I came home and found our door open, I thought I was going to have a heart attack, and when she didn't answer me, all those images flooded my brain. My heart was pounding so hard I could hardly hear. If she was being attacked, what could I do? I couldn't id the guy, couldn't chase him down and Hank is no attack dog. I pulled my gun but what good would it have been? Use it to bluff him into thinking I could see while I called for backup? One look at the harness on Hank and that would be that. Adios. When Christie finally answered me, what did I do? Instead of being relieved she was okay, I yelled at her. No explanation, no nothing.
Christie tells me that I am too absorbed in my work, that I don't have time for her, that I don't talk to her. I'm home every night now--not like it was over a year ago. Sometimes she's the one not home of an evening. How can I make her understand what its like for me at work? I have to pull more than my own weight every single day. Cross every T, dot every i. Follow procedure, leave no stone unturned, question everything and everyone one, two, three times. When she's telling me about her day, I listen--I swear I do--but then the job intrudes when some word or sound jogs something in my brain and it goes into overdrive. I know I promised to be better but sometimes I'm so tired I just want to sit and veg. I know its not fair but whoever said life was fair? Sure wasn't me.
Talking to Galloway today didn't help all that much. Sure, he was thrilled because I had finally admitted-outloud--to being less than perfect, that I had actually questioned my ability to do my job. He says I need to be emotionally as well as physically healthy. OK, I buy that but I was more concerned about Karen and her reaction to Condell's suicide. What was eating me was the fact that I had let her down. We--I--hadn't anticipated Condell pulling a gun. I had missed some signal, some clue. Condell had fooled us and we nearly paid for it. It didn't help having Marty raggin' on me later. How do I describe what that was like to Chirstie? Brains and blood on the ceiling and walls, the guy jerking his life out with half his head gone? Paints a pretty picture! How do I say:"Have I only talked myself into believing that I can do what I did before I lost my sight--that I'm just as good a cop as I ever was?' Galloway wondered why I won't talk about my marriage and the impact my blindness and my reinstatement to the force has had on it? He knows there's tension and has urged me, in so many words, to 'talk to Christie'. Where would I begin? I had become a master of lies and deceit when I was getting it in the side. Was it wrong? Yes. Did I care? Hell, no. Did I feel guilty? Honestly, I don't know. Come clean with Christie and tell her the truth, let he know what I really feel and what I really want. How do I do that when I don't know what I feel or want? The only thing I know for sure is I want to keep my job. I want them to see me as just another cop, not some blind guy who sued the city and the department and wants to play at being a cop. Karen accused me once of having something to prove. I DO! That I am as good a cop as I was a year ago , as good a man. I can't see people's reactions when they first realize that I'm blind but I can sure tell by their tone of voice. I know I get sarcastic and blunt. I can't help it. When I feel like I'm about to explode, that's when my smart mouth comes into play. A safety valve of sorts, I guess. If I ever let my control slip, I don't know what might happen. I have kept so much inside--shunted things off into their own little compartment until I can deal with it later, but later never seems to come. Christie wants to help, but she can't. Not with this. This is something I have to do on my own.
When I got home, the apartment was empty. Christie had left me a voice message saying she was meeting a friend and then walking home and would be back around 5:30. I knew that she always finishes her walks by coming through the park across the street from our place. Would it kill me to extend the olive branch? I pop the crystal on my watch and read the time--just about 5:00. I lay out Hank's super and check his water bowl and take out my cane. Hank isn't happy but Christie is still touchy about him--like he took something away from her. I know the cane is a necessity but I hate using it. It draws the wrong kind of attention to me, the 'look he's different' kind of attention.
I cross the street and head for the benches near the river. The air is cool but I can feel the sun's warmth on my face. I find 'our' bench and sit, folding the cane and stuffing it into the pouch in my trenchcoat. People are out walking, taking advantage of a nice day. A jogger runs by. Kids are playing nearby, as is a dog. River traffic chugs past. I sit and listen, occasionally turning my head to catch snatches of conversations as people wander the pathways. I have my sunglasses on, that little shield against the outside world. Christie chides me sometimes about wearing them. She assures me that my eyes look 'normal' and she accuses me of using them to keep everyone at arm's length. Maybe I do. Fortess Dunbar, only a few can cross its walls and see inside the real me.
But who is the real me? Could I have even told you that a year ago? Now--I don't know. Once I thought I knew myself--a cop, an army vet, a street kid who got into just enough trouble to be bad but not enough to have a record, a husband. But a husband who cheated on his wife, a cop who pushed the envelope too far a few times, never dirty but not squeaky clean. Walter kept me on the straight and narrow--knew me as a kid, helped me get on the force after the Gulf War, taught me what I needed to know to be a good cop. I was a hard ass, willing to take a risk if it meant getting the bad guy. Didn't cut myself any slack and I wasn't willing to cut anybody else slack either. Maybe that's why I've been so hard on Terry. We aren't cut from the same mold so how could I expect him to react as I did? But he screwed the pooch and here we are--me blind and him hanging onto his job by his fingernails after that stunt he pulled.
A tugboat blast surprises me and I jump. Sh*t! Now, that's embarrassing! I readjust my glasses and pull my trenchcoat closer, crossing my arms over my chest.
How do I make Christie understand--really understand--what life is like for me now? Sometimes, I feel like the darkness is going to swallow me whole. It goes on and on with never a glimmer of light--ever. To get dressed and take the train every morning--moving through that darkness, sounds and smells leaping up at me, all the time keeping a visual in my head so I can tell Hank which way to go. Meeting those faceless people, victims and criminals, hearing the surprise or pity or mistrust or open hostility when they realize that this blind guy is a cop and is taking on their case. Relying on the squad, relying mainly on Karen, to tell me where we are, what things look like, who are the people involved. Somedays, I could scream, yell, punch something. If I did let go, when would it stop?
I've always had to rely on myself with my dad drunk most of the time and my mom working 2-3 jobs just to keep us going. I was pretty much on my own. 'If you don't count on someone else, you don't get disappointed' was my motto. As I got older, some of that changed. In the army, your life depends on the next guy doing his job. You made friends and sometimes those friends came home in bodybags but not if you did your job right. On the force, you were partnered up and your life was in their hands as their life was in your's. I never had a single regret about the guys in my unit or my partners--at least until Terry. That day will haunt me the rest of my life. I can hardly forget about it, can I? So I guess I shut down and went back to my old motto--'If you don't count on someone else, you won't get disappointed'.
Where does that leave Christie and me? When Clay hit on her at that dinner party, I was ready to tear his arm off and feed it to him. Embarrassed the hell out of Christie and she threatened to walk out. Said she wanted some semblence of a normal life. What is 'normal' anymore? That party was torture for me--hugging that wall like there was no tomorrow, didn't know anyone and I could hardly mingle. I'm like a prisoner in solitary confinement--I can hear other people, I know life is still going on but there is this wall between us that I can't see over. How do I explain that? I know I've told her that I need her but not WHY I need her. Do I need her just so I'm not alone? We went through that rough patch over a year ago when I hooked up with Anne. We've never even talked about that time--what was going on in our marriage, in our lives. I guess we were both wanting something more and maybe being together wasn't letting that happen. We weren't talking divorce or even separation but we were drifting apart. Christie's career was really taking off and maybe I felt threatened by it. That kind of world is totally out of my league. Even though my mom was the one who put food on the table because my old man couldn't hold a steady job for 6 months at a stretch, I still think that the man had the duty, the responsibilty, for his family. If I tried to tell Christie that, there would definitely be fireworks.
How do I tell her that I feel somehow less of a man because I can't see? No matter how hard I work, no matter what I do or what I tell myself, in my heart I know that there are some things I will never be able to do. To just have the freedom to do what I want when I want without having to rely on someone else, without having to plan or be careful--without having to THINK! Sh*t, some days just walking through the squadroom can be an adventure! To admit to Christie that I'm not the same man she married--that I'm not the same man from a year ago in more ways than one. That night, when she told me she was leaving and that she had been holding things in for a year because I had been shot and needed her and that she didn't want to wait another 6 months before she could talk about it, I was surprised. No, that's not true. I hadn't asked, I hadn't listened. All the times she would begin to talk--really talk--I shut her out. I had too much on my mind, too much going on in my own life to have to deal with her problems. Not only her problems--our problems. I had to come to some kind of acceptance, some kind of compromise, with the way my life was going to be like from here on out. I had to focus on what I had to do to get back to where I wanted to be to the exclusion of nearly everything else. I had to do it--no one could do it for me. Call it selfish, self-centered, egotistical, whatever. When you grow up depending basically on yourself, its hard to admit you need help. If Christe had walked out for good that night, I can't say I would have blamed her but if she does leave me one day, I don't know what I'll do. I love her. I don't think I ever stopped loving her but somewhere along the line I began to take her love for granted. I expected her to be there for me even if I wasn't always there for her. But I love her and I want her to be happy. I want her to be happy with me--with us.
I hear her footsteps and notice how she pauses when she sees me on the bench. I take a deep breath. 'Steady, Dunbar. She's your wife. If you really want this to work, you can do it'.
"Hey" she says,standing in front of me.
"I thought we could take a walk" I say, standing and holding out my hand.
Without hesitation, she takes it and our fingers intertwine as she turns me towards home.
As a cop, I thought I had pretty good listening skills. You pay attention to what is or is not being said. Some people are nervous and lie, some are guilty and lie. Some look you in the eye and lie on a stack of Bibles that they're as pure as the driven snow. Well--I can't look anyone in the eye anymore. Can't see the nervous gestures or the slick of sweat on the upper lip or how their eyes will look anywhere but at you. Body language has a lot to do with reading a person. That's shot to sh*t now. I had gotten pretty good at reading people, knew when to keep firing off questions and when to sit back and let them tell their story. My hearing has become sharper since I've lost my sight--one compensation, I guess. At least it didn't hurt my being a cop. I pay even closer attention now to what is being said--or not being said, so yeah, I figured I had good listening skills.
But, sometimes people fool you. Well, maybe not fool you but you can't quite pin them down. This case was one of them. Two women attacked and z's slashed on their faces. We were sure Leonard Mattus was involved but he's doing a life sentence and why would he have his own sister raped? Just because she stopped visiting him? Was it Marlon Condell, a mousy little guy with no violent history, or was it Mark Watt, Mattus' enforcer on the outside? Turned out it was Condell, who had been raped by Mattus in prison and this was his revenge. The worm had turned--big time.
This case really had me going. I often see pictures in my head of the crime scene--trying to get a visual on something I can no longer see--but I kept seeing Christie beaten, raped, slashed. Was it because I didn't think I could protect her anymore? The night I came home and found our door open, I thought I was going to have a heart attack, and when she didn't answer me, all those images flooded my brain. My heart was pounding so hard I could hardly hear. If she was being attacked, what could I do? I couldn't id the guy, couldn't chase him down and Hank is no attack dog. I pulled my gun but what good would it have been? Use it to bluff him into thinking I could see while I called for backup? One look at the harness on Hank and that would be that. Adios. When Christie finally answered me, what did I do? Instead of being relieved she was okay, I yelled at her. No explanation, no nothing.
Christie tells me that I am too absorbed in my work, that I don't have time for her, that I don't talk to her. I'm home every night now--not like it was over a year ago. Sometimes she's the one not home of an evening. How can I make her understand what its like for me at work? I have to pull more than my own weight every single day. Cross every T, dot every i. Follow procedure, leave no stone unturned, question everything and everyone one, two, three times. When she's telling me about her day, I listen--I swear I do--but then the job intrudes when some word or sound jogs something in my brain and it goes into overdrive. I know I promised to be better but sometimes I'm so tired I just want to sit and veg. I know its not fair but whoever said life was fair? Sure wasn't me.
Talking to Galloway today didn't help all that much. Sure, he was thrilled because I had finally admitted-outloud--to being less than perfect, that I had actually questioned my ability to do my job. He says I need to be emotionally as well as physically healthy. OK, I buy that but I was more concerned about Karen and her reaction to Condell's suicide. What was eating me was the fact that I had let her down. We--I--hadn't anticipated Condell pulling a gun. I had missed some signal, some clue. Condell had fooled us and we nearly paid for it. It didn't help having Marty raggin' on me later. How do I describe what that was like to Chirstie? Brains and blood on the ceiling and walls, the guy jerking his life out with half his head gone? Paints a pretty picture! How do I say:"Have I only talked myself into believing that I can do what I did before I lost my sight--that I'm just as good a cop as I ever was?' Galloway wondered why I won't talk about my marriage and the impact my blindness and my reinstatement to the force has had on it? He knows there's tension and has urged me, in so many words, to 'talk to Christie'. Where would I begin? I had become a master of lies and deceit when I was getting it in the side. Was it wrong? Yes. Did I care? Hell, no. Did I feel guilty? Honestly, I don't know. Come clean with Christie and tell her the truth, let he know what I really feel and what I really want. How do I do that when I don't know what I feel or want? The only thing I know for sure is I want to keep my job. I want them to see me as just another cop, not some blind guy who sued the city and the department and wants to play at being a cop. Karen accused me once of having something to prove. I DO! That I am as good a cop as I was a year ago , as good a man. I can't see people's reactions when they first realize that I'm blind but I can sure tell by their tone of voice. I know I get sarcastic and blunt. I can't help it. When I feel like I'm about to explode, that's when my smart mouth comes into play. A safety valve of sorts, I guess. If I ever let my control slip, I don't know what might happen. I have kept so much inside--shunted things off into their own little compartment until I can deal with it later, but later never seems to come. Christie wants to help, but she can't. Not with this. This is something I have to do on my own.
When I got home, the apartment was empty. Christie had left me a voice message saying she was meeting a friend and then walking home and would be back around 5:30. I knew that she always finishes her walks by coming through the park across the street from our place. Would it kill me to extend the olive branch? I pop the crystal on my watch and read the time--just about 5:00. I lay out Hank's super and check his water bowl and take out my cane. Hank isn't happy but Christie is still touchy about him--like he took something away from her. I know the cane is a necessity but I hate using it. It draws the wrong kind of attention to me, the 'look he's different' kind of attention.
I cross the street and head for the benches near the river. The air is cool but I can feel the sun's warmth on my face. I find 'our' bench and sit, folding the cane and stuffing it into the pouch in my trenchcoat. People are out walking, taking advantage of a nice day. A jogger runs by. Kids are playing nearby, as is a dog. River traffic chugs past. I sit and listen, occasionally turning my head to catch snatches of conversations as people wander the pathways. I have my sunglasses on, that little shield against the outside world. Christie chides me sometimes about wearing them. She assures me that my eyes look 'normal' and she accuses me of using them to keep everyone at arm's length. Maybe I do. Fortess Dunbar, only a few can cross its walls and see inside the real me.
But who is the real me? Could I have even told you that a year ago? Now--I don't know. Once I thought I knew myself--a cop, an army vet, a street kid who got into just enough trouble to be bad but not enough to have a record, a husband. But a husband who cheated on his wife, a cop who pushed the envelope too far a few times, never dirty but not squeaky clean. Walter kept me on the straight and narrow--knew me as a kid, helped me get on the force after the Gulf War, taught me what I needed to know to be a good cop. I was a hard ass, willing to take a risk if it meant getting the bad guy. Didn't cut myself any slack and I wasn't willing to cut anybody else slack either. Maybe that's why I've been so hard on Terry. We aren't cut from the same mold so how could I expect him to react as I did? But he screwed the pooch and here we are--me blind and him hanging onto his job by his fingernails after that stunt he pulled.
A tugboat blast surprises me and I jump. Sh*t! Now, that's embarrassing! I readjust my glasses and pull my trenchcoat closer, crossing my arms over my chest.
How do I make Christie understand--really understand--what life is like for me now? Sometimes, I feel like the darkness is going to swallow me whole. It goes on and on with never a glimmer of light--ever. To get dressed and take the train every morning--moving through that darkness, sounds and smells leaping up at me, all the time keeping a visual in my head so I can tell Hank which way to go. Meeting those faceless people, victims and criminals, hearing the surprise or pity or mistrust or open hostility when they realize that this blind guy is a cop and is taking on their case. Relying on the squad, relying mainly on Karen, to tell me where we are, what things look like, who are the people involved. Somedays, I could scream, yell, punch something. If I did let go, when would it stop?
I've always had to rely on myself with my dad drunk most of the time and my mom working 2-3 jobs just to keep us going. I was pretty much on my own. 'If you don't count on someone else, you don't get disappointed' was my motto. As I got older, some of that changed. In the army, your life depends on the next guy doing his job. You made friends and sometimes those friends came home in bodybags but not if you did your job right. On the force, you were partnered up and your life was in their hands as their life was in your's. I never had a single regret about the guys in my unit or my partners--at least until Terry. That day will haunt me the rest of my life. I can hardly forget about it, can I? So I guess I shut down and went back to my old motto--'If you don't count on someone else, you won't get disappointed'.
Where does that leave Christie and me? When Clay hit on her at that dinner party, I was ready to tear his arm off and feed it to him. Embarrassed the hell out of Christie and she threatened to walk out. Said she wanted some semblence of a normal life. What is 'normal' anymore? That party was torture for me--hugging that wall like there was no tomorrow, didn't know anyone and I could hardly mingle. I'm like a prisoner in solitary confinement--I can hear other people, I know life is still going on but there is this wall between us that I can't see over. How do I explain that? I know I've told her that I need her but not WHY I need her. Do I need her just so I'm not alone? We went through that rough patch over a year ago when I hooked up with Anne. We've never even talked about that time--what was going on in our marriage, in our lives. I guess we were both wanting something more and maybe being together wasn't letting that happen. We weren't talking divorce or even separation but we were drifting apart. Christie's career was really taking off and maybe I felt threatened by it. That kind of world is totally out of my league. Even though my mom was the one who put food on the table because my old man couldn't hold a steady job for 6 months at a stretch, I still think that the man had the duty, the responsibilty, for his family. If I tried to tell Christie that, there would definitely be fireworks.
How do I tell her that I feel somehow less of a man because I can't see? No matter how hard I work, no matter what I do or what I tell myself, in my heart I know that there are some things I will never be able to do. To just have the freedom to do what I want when I want without having to rely on someone else, without having to plan or be careful--without having to THINK! Sh*t, some days just walking through the squadroom can be an adventure! To admit to Christie that I'm not the same man she married--that I'm not the same man from a year ago in more ways than one. That night, when she told me she was leaving and that she had been holding things in for a year because I had been shot and needed her and that she didn't want to wait another 6 months before she could talk about it, I was surprised. No, that's not true. I hadn't asked, I hadn't listened. All the times she would begin to talk--really talk--I shut her out. I had too much on my mind, too much going on in my own life to have to deal with her problems. Not only her problems--our problems. I had to come to some kind of acceptance, some kind of compromise, with the way my life was going to be like from here on out. I had to focus on what I had to do to get back to where I wanted to be to the exclusion of nearly everything else. I had to do it--no one could do it for me. Call it selfish, self-centered, egotistical, whatever. When you grow up depending basically on yourself, its hard to admit you need help. If Christe had walked out for good that night, I can't say I would have blamed her but if she does leave me one day, I don't know what I'll do. I love her. I don't think I ever stopped loving her but somewhere along the line I began to take her love for granted. I expected her to be there for me even if I wasn't always there for her. But I love her and I want her to be happy. I want her to be happy with me--with us.
I hear her footsteps and notice how she pauses when she sees me on the bench. I take a deep breath. 'Steady, Dunbar. She's your wife. If you really want this to work, you can do it'.
"Hey" she says,standing in front of me.
"I thought we could take a walk" I say, standing and holding out my hand.
Without hesitation, she takes it and our fingers intertwine as she turns me towards home.