“Me? No.”
“Well, if you’re going to walk me down the aisle in two months, you’re going to need one.”
“Oh. Sure.”
“I made an appointment for you tomorrow night at Nelson’s Tuxedo Rentals. I’ll pick you up at 6 and we can head over to Southdale. Maybe have dinner somewhere first. That work for you?”
“Fine, sweetheart. I’ll look forward to it.” I turned in my chair. Glancing up, I fumbled with the phone, nearly dropping it. Ryan was standing in the middle of the kitchen, arms stretched out in front of him, holding the gun in both hands—the barrel pointed at my chest.
“Holy shit!”
“What did you say, Dad?”
I tried to cover, to stop my voice from betraying my shock. “I just mean…the wedding’s getting so close.”
“I gotta run, okay?”
“Sure, honey.” The dark glasses hid the fear in my eyes, but I was afraid Ryan had picked up on it. Maybe I should have told my daughter to send the police. Except, by the time they got to the apartment, I could have been dead. I had to play this carefully.
“See you tomorrow night at 6,” Cary said.
“See yah,” I replied weakly, clicking the phone off. I was vibrating internally, but trying to hold it together. Sensing that my hands were shaking, I crossed my arms over my chest. “That was my daughter.”
He didn’t respond.
“So,” I said, sucking in a deep breath, “where were we?”
“You were giving me your happy lecture.”
“I was?”
“Tell me something real, man. Don’t you have any, like, dark truths? Stuff about the evil side of life?” He held the gun steady.
My stomach vanished. “Does that seem more real to you than positive thoughts?”
“Hell yes.”
I said the first thing that came into my head. “My parents thought evil was Auschwitz. Concentration camps. You know what they are?”
“I’m not stupid.”
“I didn’t say you were.” I tried to regroup mentally and start again. “Truthfully, Ryan, I’ve spent a lot of my life thinking about evil.”
“And?”
“Well, people today talk about it like everyone knows what it is. Like it’s the weather. Everybody knows about the weather, right?” I paused, hoping for a response. When I didn’t get one, I continued, “See, we play with the word. Evil is bad, but bad means good sometimes, right? Evil is rebellious, irreverent, sexy. It’s what’s forbidden. And what’s forbidden is a mystery, and mysteries are cool. It’s the uptight assholes, usually our parents or teachers, who tell us what’s right and wrong, and what the hell do they know?”
He grunted at that one.
“For a long time, Ryan, maybe I thought a little like you. I saw evil as something that was darkly grand in a grotesque Third Reich sort of way. I liked to talk about evil in the rhetoric of Milton, of
Paradise Lost.
I romanticized it. Bad was dangerous, and that was cool. But you know what?”
“What?”
How did I explain this to him when most of the time I couldn’t explain it to myself? I gave it a second, then said, “See, Vietnam taught my generation a different lesson from the one World War II taught my parents. It showed us not the evil of others—but the evil of us. And that’s when I started thinking that evil wasn’t grand and epic and biblical; it was shallow and messy, grimy and stupid. Why do people hurt each other, Ryan?” I gave him some time to respond. When he just stood there belligerently, I continued, “Because they can. Because they feel like it. Because they want something and they have the power to take it. That’s it. Nothing grand or cool.”
The gun lowered a few notches. He was finally listening. “Go on.”
“I think we should stop talking about evil geniuses and instead talk about evil morons. And here’s the bottom line. Being a victim—being somebody who’s been hurt—is the world class excuse, the Mount Everest of self-justification.
He hurt me so I can hurt him—or someone else who just happens
to get in my way.
People do evil because it’s convenient, because of peer pressure and cowardice, because they’re inattentive or under the sway of some idiot ideology. We’re all victims of something, so we all have an excuse for what we do. Except, life shouldn’t work like that. If it does, then all the hurt just continues on forever. People—men in particular— think that courage means stuff like driving a car too fast, or knocking someone down in a fight. But the kind of courage you really need in life is moral. That’s the really hard kind of courage, Ryan. The courage not to be stupid, or shallow, or mean.”
He stared at me. A long moment passed. And then he lowered the gun and stuffed it in his pocket.
“You’re weird.”
“I am?” I could smell the sauce burning. “Better check the food on the stove.”
When he turned away from me, I collapsed back against my chair, waiting for the basketball in my chest to deflate. I struggled to think of a plausible excuse to get him to leave, but at the same time, I was afraid that if I ended the evening abruptly it would tip him off that I’d seen the gun in his hand. I figured that would put me in even greater danger.
The next few minutes were brutal. Something I’d said must have struck a chord because Ryan grew increasingly silent. He’d answer my questions, but with very brief responses. And then, slowly, his mood seemed to lighten. It was as if a light switch had been flipped on inside him, revealing a completely different kid. We ate our dinner and he talked animatedly about music, his main interest, and baseball, an interest we shared, and then he cleaned up. At one point, I remember he said, “You remind me of my dad.”
“Is that good?” I asked.
“Yeah. It’s very good. The best.” He sat down on at the table across from me. “You know, I was just thinking, maybe you could use a kid around here sometimes.”
The comment touched me, more deeply than I realized at the time. “Yeah,” I said. “Maybe I could. And maybe you could use an old guy in your life—every now and then.”
“Next time I come,” he said, “I’ll bring this book my dad liked.
To Kill a Mockingbird.
Ever heard of it?”
I smiled, told him I had.
“I think you’d like it. I’ll read it to you, okay?”
I still wasn’t sure I wanted a repeat of this evening, but before I could respond, he said, “Let me tell you something, Leo. Something I hate more than anything in the whole world. I hate liars. Like people who tell you they love you, but you know they don’t. You know what I mean?”
I nodded.
“So don’t ever lie to me, okay?”
I felt like a fraud. I was a fraud. He didn’t know it, but I was already lying to him. “Okay,” I said.
“You really promise?”
“I do. I promise.”
When he left, he put a hand on my shoulder, and then, suddenly, he hugged me. “You’re okay, man. I’ll be in touch.”
The next day, I couldn’t seem to get him out of my thoughts. I’d been right to think he was a danger to me, but now that our evening together was over and the worst had passed, I started looking forward to seeing him again.
Dinner with Cary on Thursday night was something less than splendid. I told her about being mugged outside my apartment, and that the kid who’d knocked me down had bruised one of my ribs. Thankfully, it wasn’t broken, just sore. But my daughter was so consumed by all of the wedding minutia that the story barely registered. After trying on a dozen tuxedos, and at least that many vests, she finally decided what looked best on me and we ordered it. When she dropped me back at the apartment, she gave me a peck on the cheek. I wanted more.
Over the next seven months, I got to know Ryan very well. We spent at least a couple of nights together every week—sometimes more. My vision stayed pretty much the same, but I was getting better at hiding it, so I don’t think Ryan ever caught on. Sometimes we’d go out to dinner, but most often we stayed in. Ryan loved books, and I loved him for it. We read
To Kill a Mockingbird, Huckleberry Finn,
Animal Farm, Lonesome Dove,
and
The Catcher in the Rye.
I figured it was best we get to that last book together before he read it himself. It had been a problem for so many kids that I wanted to talk about it with him. As with most boys his age, Ryan agreed that the world was filled with phonies. And it was at that point that he really opened up for the first time, told me about his life, how he hated his mother. He went on and on about how she would say she loved him, then shove him out the door. I don’t think he’d ever talked to anyone about any of this before, and the act of sharing his feelings, his pain, brought us even closer.
By March, I felt as if he’d become a second son. I had such high hopes for him. He’d been bringing his homework over for months. I’d help him with it if I could. Or, if he didn’t need my input, he’d sit in the living room working on it while I listened to the TV. It wasn’t like we were doing something together all the time. He seemed content just to be with me. And his grades improved. We started talking about college. When he’d leave for the night, he’d hug me. It made me realize how starved I was for affection—for the physical touch of another human being.
One afternoon in late May, I woke from an afternoon nap to find that my vision had suddenly worsened. The world was covered in an even thicker haze. By evening, I had developed a bad case of nervous energy. I hadn’t seen Ryan all week and that was bothering me too. I listened to the news and all of David Letterman and I still wasn’t tired. I got the idea in my head that I should buy a frozen pizza for the next time Ryan and I had dinner together. Chuck’s Market stayed open until midnight, so I put on my coat, grabbed my big flashlight and cane, and headed out the door. I think part of the reason I went out was to prove that I could still do it—still be independent, still make it across the park, no matter what was happening to my sight.
Chuck was behind the front counter when I entered. “Busy night?” I asked.
“No,” he said, stuffing his newspaper under the counter. “Slow. Bad business today. Bad economy. Make me worry.”
I headed to the frozen food section. Adjusting my thick glasses, I squinted at the pictures on the box covers. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was looking at, but I thought one was sausage, another pepperoni. There was an odd one that looked like it had mushrooms and something green on top. I figured the green stuff would put off a teenager. As I was dithering over which to take, I heard the door jingle open and then shut. A second later, I heard Chuck cry out: “You leave store! Go away, get out!”
I turned and saw two indistinct forms hovering by the front counter.
“The money!” said a young voice. “Now. Quick!”
My mouth opened. It was Ryan’s voice.
“No money,” insisted Chuck. “You go or I—”
Everything moved so fast after that, and my vision was so cloudy, that I can’t tell you for sure what happened. I think Chuck must have reached under the counter, or at least looked like he was about to. The kid who’d come in with Ryan fired a gun and Chuck dropped down out of sight.
I heard Ryan swear. Then scream, “You freak! Why’d you do that?”
“Get the money!”
The kid with the gun burst back through the store, looking to see if anyone had witnessed the shooting. I backed into the shadows next to the freezer and ripped off my glasses. As I pushed them into my pocket, I realized I had my dark glasses with me. I quickly put them on. If the shooter thought I was blind, maybe he’d leave without killing me. My entire body was quaking as I watched him swing around the end of a row of canned goods, the gun held stiffly out in front of him.
“Not much here,” called Ryan. “Maybe two hundred.”
“Shit,” said his buddy. And then he saw me.
“Come outta there!” he shouted.
I didn’t move.
Ryan rushed to the back. When he saw me, he knocked his partner’s hand down.
“Fuck, man! Why’d you do that?”
Ryan whispered, “He’s blind, for chrissake. Leave him alone. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
The kid hesitated.
Ryan grabbed his arm. “Come on!”
The kid with the gun stared at me for another millisecond, then took off.
I guess I’m not much of a hero. I fell to my knees, shaking so hard I wet my pants. It took a long time to pull myself together. Minutes. Maybe longer. I finally struggled to my feet and raced to the front counter. Chuck was lying on his back with a big bloody hole in the center of his chest. I knelt down and felt for a pulse at his neck. If there was one, I couldn’t find it. I grabbed the phone and punched in 911.
A woman’s voice answered, “Emergency operator.”
I told her where I was, that a man had been shot—the owner of the market. I think I may have been crying.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.” I couldn’t seem to catch my breath.
“Are the assailants gone? You said there were two?”
I glanced outside, but all I could think of was Ryan, the trouble he was in. Why had he been so stupid? I was hemorrhaging internally for a kid I wasn’t sure I even knew.
For my son.
“Sir, are you there?”
“Yeah.”
“A squad car is on the way. Did you see the assailants?”
“What?”
“You called them kids.”
“I did?” The air shimmered around me. My instinct screamed at me to protect him, but was that right or wrong?
“Can you describe them? Did you…” She paused.
Ten seconds. Twenty.
“Sir? Are you there? Sir?”
Columbia Heights (Minneapolis)
F
or years, every time I drive up Central Avenue into Columbia Heights I’d start feeling like I had the barrel of a gun jabbed in the small of my back. If I hung around the place long enough, I knew damn well I’d eventually have that gun between my teeth, and every night when I went to bed I’d lie awake with the taste of iron and oil in my mouth. I grew up out there in the Heights, and my old neighborhood was the bit I’d never been able to spit.
Whenever I made that trip over the last couple decades I’d always had better things to do, and this particular occasion was no different.