Authors: Sandra Kitt
“Almost nothing. What do you drink?”
“Sometimes sauterne. Sometimes Rhine.”
“Sweet.”
“You don’t like sweet?”
“I like beer. A man’s drink.”
Leah looked at him, puzzled. But his expression was perfectly straight, and she instantly realized that he was teasing and being slightly sarcastic. The combination was another relief and made her laugh.
Leah began to tally up the things she was learning about Jason Horn. All in all he seemed a pretty normal, healthy, average white male. Not as cocky or arrogant as many she’d had to deal with in her life. And he was attractive.
Jason was taller than she remembered. He had a face whose masculine features showed some wear and tear, but also the expressiveness of someone not afraid of his own feelings. He was not a young man, but he hadn’t hit middle age yet. He seemed a man who had done and seen a lot. His hair, still mostly a medium brown, had just the beginnings of gray here and there. It also had a tendency to fall into a natural off-center part, and was a bit long in back. He was clean-shaven, unlike the slightly scruffy shadow of a beard he’d worn when she’d first seen him. And his eyes, a haunting warm gray, were very direct. When Jason talked he looked right at her, unless some thought or idea or memory drew his gaze off into space. The most extraordinary thing about his face were his eyes—and a surprisingly ready smile.
All afternoon Leah waited for the signs that indicated that their initial curiosity had been satisfied, and they would thank each other for the coffee and say good-bye. But it didn’t happen that way. The time passed with no inclination from either of them to end it.
They finally left the coffee shop and began walking along the perimeter of Prospect Park to the west. It was dark now; the sun had set over an hour earlier. Slowly they made their way back to Leah’s street. She asked him what had happened after he’d finally gotten home in September. He said he’d gone to bed and slept until late Sunday night. And when she asked if he’d made it to work on Monday, he was silent and thoughtful for quite a long time. Finally, he shook his head in answer.
They passed four teenage boys in front of an apartment house near the corner, laughing together and goofing on the exaggerated sexual exploits of one of them. Jason and Leah looked at each other briefly with the same thought. They wouldn’t want to be fifteen again for anything.
Once in front of the brownstone, they sat next to each other on the steps. Jason was still an encounter, albeit a unique and fascinating one. But she still didn’t know him well enough to put out the welcome mat and invite him in.
Besides, Gail would have killed her.
Leah declined Jason’s offer of a cigarette and sat quietly while he smoked. She thought the afternoon over. None of the mystery of that earlier September night had been solved or even much discussed. None of her questions had been answered. On the other hand, she’d felt too shy to be specific. Maybe there was no need to be. Jason Horn seemed fine now. Back to normal, whatever that might be for him. Still, it had been a surprisingly pleasant day, Leah conceded. Soon they’d say good night and wish each other well.
Fini.
Leah was disappointed, and she hadn’t expected that. But after all, what more was there? She’d learned that he lived somewhere on the border of Sunset Park. He’d mentioned his sister, so he had family. He could be a killer for all she really knew, although this was a terrible time to suddenly think of that. She didn’t believe that, anyway. Leah pulled her sweater coat closer about her and hunched her shoulders.
“Are you cold?” Jason asked, noticing.
“No, I’m fine.” She turned to look at him but couldn’t see the details of his face in the dark. She could see the cigarette smoke curling over his head, an occasional flash in his eyes.
“What do you do?” he asked suddenly, as if the question had only just occurred to him.
“I do design work. Book jackets and ads. Promotion, some illustrations. I work for a publishing house in Manhattan.”
“An artist,” he commented, nodding.
“Not really. I’m a graphic designer.”
“You’re an artist,” he repeated firmly.
She shrugged. “I like what I do. It’s easy for me. What about you? I already know you used to work with a scout troop, and you work twenty-four hours a day.”
He looked sharply at her.
Leah grinned. “I’m a good listener.”
Jason hesitated, taking another puff of the cigarette, almost nervously. “Me? I work with kids.”
“Are you a teacher? I bet you teach something like gym and health ed, or coach a team sport. Right? You know, you don’t look like a teacher.”
He smiled at her quizzically. “What does a teacher look like?”
“Oh … harried. Overweight. Resigned. Orthopedic.”
He chuckled in amusement and then grew silent. “No, I’m not a teacher.”
Jason paused for so long that Leah knew he didn’t want to answer and was hoping that the subject would just drop. But the long pause made her all the more interested.
“Well?” she coaxed impatiently.
Jason was looking away, across the street, down the block. Almost anywhere but at Leah. He began to crack the knuckles of his left hand. “I’m a cop.”
If Jason was trying to shock her, he succeeded. She could sense that he hadn’t wanted to tell her at all because he probably knew what the reaction would be. About that he had been right.
In Jason Horn’s experience people reacted a certain way to the police. The reactions were never good. Except in an emergency. People see grim-looking men, mostly white, with guns and handcuffs. Even out of uniform something about them was a dead giveaway as to what they did every day. The police were seen as different. Police were “them” against “us.”
Leah had never spoken to a cop in her life. They were people you approached if there was a crisis; you didn’t have coffee with them. She felt herself withdrawing. She couldn’t help it.
“Surprised?” Jason asked, still not looking at her. Perhaps he knew the look on her face would put them astronomical distances apart.
“Yes,” she murmured tightly and felt uncharacteristic anger building. Some of it was unidentifiable and nebulous, but the rest was very clear. She knew how cops treated black folks.
“What are you thinking now?” Jason asked.
For a moment Leah couldn’t answer. She just sat stiffly, not looking at him. “The truth? I’m thinking, what the hell am I doing here with you?” She turned to regard him openly. “And I’m thinking about a lot of young black men killed senselessly by police. White police.”
Jason shook his head. “Not always senselessly. Sometimes there’s good reason and you know it,” he said unapologetically.
Leah was taken aback.
Of course. She knew that. But it didn’t help. She sat silently as Jason calmly finished his cigarette and tossed the butt into the street. In a nervous gesture he ran his hand through his hair and half turned toward Leah.
“Look, we’re the first ones you’d call if you were in trouble. How bad can I be?”
“I don’t have a choice, do I?” she asked tightly.
“But I’d be there,” he said softly.
I.
Not
we.
Leah looked at him finally, seeing a man more sure of himself. He no longer needed sympathy. She no longer wanted to give it. Without any further response, Leah suddenly stood.
Jason reached out and grabbed her arm. Not roughly, but firmly enough to deter her. In that instant their eyes met. Jason wouldn’t let go, and slowly Leah sat down again. The short silence that followed was needed, to let go of a tension that had built with astounding speed, and which had to dissipate somehow.
“Are you uncomfortable with me?” Jason asked quietly.
Leah’s eyes widened with acknowledgment. “Aren’t you?
Jason half grinned. “No …”
Leah felt impatient. This wasn’t going right. He should have taken himself off in some sort of defensive huff, the same way she would have a moment ago. But Jason just sat there, as if waiting for the steam to vent itself completely from her.
“What kind of cop are you anyway?” Leah asked.
Jason slowly leaned back against the wrought iron banister, and reached for another cigarette. “A good one …” he murmured.
Jason told Leah that he was a juvenile officer, a kiddie cop. Somehow the information allowed Leah to feel he was different from her image of the men in blue. Maybe because she wanted to believe otherwise. She sat and listened to Jason talk about what it was he actually did. Nonetheless, she made a feeble remark, a criticism that didn’t come close to damaging his ego.
“I suppose you know you smoke too much.”
He shrugged but lit the cigarette anyway.
“You don’t look like a cop, either,” Leah observed.
Jason grinned. “Still trying to convince yourself I’m okay?”
He was more than half right, and the fact that he could smile about it went a long way toward making Leah relax. She was no longer inclined to leave. She leaned back against the opposite banister from Jason and left all that space between them.
“Why juvenile work? Why not homicide, or narcotics or …”
“Some other disgusting vice?” Jason filled in for her. “It’s all the same. Juvenile used to mean kids who got into trouble. Now it’s criminals who are not of legal age. Everything changed.”
“What do you do for them?”
Jason shrugged negligently. “Not much, really. I listen. I talk. I coach sports. It’s physical and lets off a lot of energy. If they want to fight, they can fight with me.” He smiled at her. “I’m bigger, so I usually win. It’s better than having them go out and hurt someone else because they’re frustrated and pissed off.”
Leah did not know what she had expected Jason to tell her about his work, but it wasn’t this. It didn’t sound so much like police work as it did social work, a kind of therapy for problem kids. An intervention system between the kids and incarceration.
“Why?” Leah asked.
She could see Jason taking the time to consider the question. Once again he got that faraway look that told Leah he was looking for an honest answer.
“Sometimes I think Americans don’t really like kids very much. We have them and then we don’t know what to do with them. Kids take time, and they’re often a lot of trouble. More and more people aren’t willing to be troubled. So what we end up with, what I see too much of, is throwaway kids. I see an awful lot of abandoned, abused, neglected kids that nobody wants. I sometimes wonder, how did it come to this? How did people get from caring enough about each other to create a kid and bring it into the world, to one day deciding they just don’t want to be bothered anymore?”
Leah was silent. She was surprised. And she had to admit she was impressed. She’d almost completely forgotten about her indignation of a moment ago as she listened to Jason. He certainly didn’t talk like a cop. But she still wondered if he was really all that different from the other cops she’d read about or had seen on the nightly news.
“Do you shoot people?” she found herself asking.
Jason squinted against his cigarette smoke and was thoughtful. “If I have to.”
“Have you had to?”
He hesitated and then looked squarely at her. “Yeah. Once.”
“At least you’re honest,” she murmured. Then she felt an overwhelming need to move, to get away and be alone. “I’ve got to go …” she said, standing.
Jason stood as well. “I’d like to see you again,” he said easily. “I feel I still owe you an explanation.”
Leah shook her head. “You don’t have to.”
“I’d like to. I’d like to try to tell you what happened in September. I’m still trying to understand myself. How about we go for dinner Friday night and talk about it?”
His question annoyed Leah. He wasn’t going to give up. Her expression must have shown that because Jason gave her a wry grin.
“The coffee brought me to my senses, but it didn’t cure anything. Maybe I’m still a little out of it.”
It occurred to Leah belatedly that Jason was not having any trouble at all with their being together under such odd circumstances. She wondered if she could trust her own sense that he was okay, and that having dinner with him was indeed, no big deal. Leah wanted to see him again because in truth, her curiosity had not abated at all with the afternoon. Discovering that he was a cop had only upped the ante—clear through the roof. Leah wondered if she would have felt the same if he’d actually been a teacher.
“You know, you’re getting an awful lot of mileage out of one cup of coffee.”
Jason lifted a corner of his mouth in a sad sort of smile. “Maybe. Maybe it wasn’t the coffee at all, but the thought that was important. At least to me.” He watched her and waited.
Leah finally agreed on a long sigh. “Okay.” She began climbing the stairs.
Jason watched her. “It’s been an interesting afternoon, Leah Downey.”
“That’s one way to put it,” she said dryly. As she put the key in the door, she half turned to watch Jason as he started to walk away.
“I’ll pick you up here at seven. See you Friday.” With long, casual strides he was gone.
Gail was simultaneously reading a fashion magazine, watching TV, and polishing her nails when Leah entered the house. She did not hesitate for a second to satisfy her curiosity. “Well?” she began. “Did he get funny on you?”
“I had a police escort the whole afternoon. I couldn’t have been safer,” Leah responded.
Jason blocked out the babble of the station house routine. The noise no longer drove him crazy because there was never a peaceful moment. He had long since given up expecting an environment conducive to clear thinking and productivity.
A fellow officer had once told Jason that the general public should never get the idea that a police precinct was a pleasant environment. If people found themselves at one, it would not be an enriching experience. It was dreary, intimidating, and cold. It had no attractive rooms, no comfortable furniture, and a lot of skeptical men and women in uniform who’d seen it all, and then some. However, if asked, the officers, down to a man, would probably say that they loved their work. All for different reasons and with different expectations. It would take a lot to convince anyone outside the brotherhood that any of the reasons were altruistic. Being a cop was mostly about power … and control. Jason never tried to deny that.