I am not sure how to dispose of a gun. But I don’t want this gun to be used ever, so I put it in the toilet, thinking that the water will rust its parts and make it useless. It looks bizarre there, a gun in a toilet, and just for a second, I laugh. I try to remind myself that this is not funny, but the laugh releases something. I wish Rodney were here to see this: a gun in a toilet, his fifty-three-year-old sister gingerly placing it there. And then it comes to me in a rush. The six-year-old girl who picked up that gun, carried it out of the closet, aimed it at a violent man, was brave. She was wildly, brilliantly brave. I’ve never thought of that day with anything but shame—the shame of a child whose mother did not look—but right now, staring at that gun in the toilet, something like elation comes over me.
I suppose I’ve always seen that day the way I saw it when I was six.
And now I see the six-year-old.
I sit there, shivering in a cold bathroom, staring at a gun in a toilet, knowing that my son’s life is coming apart, and I feel, well, whole. Avis Eileen Briggs. No one in this world cared if that little girl lived or died; almost no one in this world would have known one way or the other. But look what she did. Look who she was. Look who I was.
I’M SURE BULLETS COUNT AS
a hazardous waste, but I decide that I don’t care. I tie them into a trash bag tightly, and then I put that bag inside a bag of kitchen waste, and then I put the kitchen waste in the middle of the largest garbage can. It’s possible that they will be found, but I doubt it.
Before I leave the house, I will get the gun out of the toilet. I’ll hide it the same way I hid the bullets. It won’t be the worst thing to make it into a landfill.
23
Roberta
SOMETIMES BEING A CASA
is scary. The weeks of training don’t seem like much when I’m walking into a bombed-out shell of a house off Owens by myself. I carry Mace for the dogs, but what do you carry for the slurring, blank-eyed drug addict who doesn’t want you to talk to her two-year-old child? What do you carry for the mentally ill brother, or the old man in the corner yelling about the gooks? Of course, I don’t have to make those sorts of visits. A lot of CASAs don’t. It’s just that I know my recommendations can upend a child’s whole world. I like to be sure.
I’ve volunteered as a Court Appointed Special Advocate for thirteen years, so I can generally choose which families I work with. As soon as I read the reports of the shooting, as soon as I heard that the children had been there, that the father was going crazy, as soon as I read the same newspaper articles everyone else did, I knew I would request the case. Those children would end up in foster care, at least for a while, and they would almost certainly be assigned a CASA, even though we were shorthanded. I wanted to be that CASA. I’m as afraid of making a mistake as anyone else, but if there’s one thing thirteen years have taught me, it’s that I’d rather live knowing I made a mistake than wondering if I could have made a difference if I’d tried.
The way I see it, nothing in life is a rehearsal. It’s not preparation for anything else. There’s no getting ready for it. There’s no waiting for the real part to begin. Not ever. Not even for the smallest child. This is it. And if you wait too long to figure that out, to figure out that we are the ones making the world, we are the ones to whom all the problems—and all the possibilities for grace—now fall, then you lose everything. Your only shot at this world.
I get that this one small life is all we have for whatever it is that we are going to do. And I want in.
LOU WAS FINE WITH MY
request. She said she had expected it, and that even though Bernie might also want the Ahmeti children, one of his current cases was in too precarious a situation for his attention to be divided.
So that was that, and now we waited. It would take a while, even after the children were placed in foster care, for the CASA request to be made. I got ready. I tracked down a contact at Catholic Refugee Services, because I saw that the Ahmetis had originally been sent to Las Vegas through them. I looked up the family’s address and searched the school district website for information about the elementary school that Bashkim probably attended. I even found a couple of listings for Albanian cultural organizations, just in case the Ahmetis were involved with one. And then I called my nephew, who works at LVPD.
“Ari, it’s Roberta. I was wondering if we could get together, talk about that shooting, this week?”
“Hi, Roberta. I thought you might call. Have you got the case already?”
“No. It hasn’t come in, but it will. Can you talk?”
“Yeah, a little. I’m headed out of town for a week, so we can talk now and meet when I get back if you want. Let me shut my door.”
“So, Ari, do you know anything about this guy? What’s going to happen?”
“What’s going to happen? Nothing. There’ll be an investigation. He’ll be cleared. That’ll be it from our end.”
“Yeah, I suppose so.”
“The thing is, the cop’s a local kid. His dad’s Jim Gisselberg, from MGM Resorts. That’s how he got on the force so fast, though he would have made it anyway. Served three tours in Iraq.”
“Iraq?”
“Yeah. Army. Special Forces.”
“So is that the story? He was trigger happy? He’s got anger issues? What happened?”
“Roberta, I can’t tell you much about that. I mean, everybody’s talking. He’s a popular guy, but there are a couple of people who have had doubts. He’s gotten pretty drunk off duty, and he can get wild. He’s been with guys from the force, so they’ve stopped him from doing anything too crazy. I mean, he just barely got out of the service, and he was a cop. Right into the academy, right into a patrol. So who knows?”
“Ari, why does LVPD do this? Why so fast?”
“I told you. He’s got a dad. He’s a war hero. He’s a local Vegas kid. He tests well. Look at it from our side: he’s a great hire.”
“Yeah? Do you know him yourself? What do you think?”
“I’ve talked to him. Our paths cross. But I’ve never had a drink with him. I don’t work with cops on the beat anymore. So he’s just a big, buff-looking guy. I talked with his wife at the Christmas party. She seemed nice. I really don’t know anything more.”
“Okay. Yeah. What about the dad? Sadik Ahmeti. What are they saying about him?”
“Oh, well, nobody here’s going to have a kind word for that guy. He’s a nut job. No trouble with the law, though. Got citizenship last spring. Hasn’t paid some parking tickets. Obviously didn’t pay up on his truck registration. This is the kind of stuff we know about him. He was a political prisoner in Albania. Probably made him paranoid. That’s the last guy that a cop wants to meet on a bad day.”
“It doesn’t sound like he’s going to be in any shape to take those kids. And the paper says that there are no relatives in this country.”
“I read that too. You know the other cop that was there, Nate Gisselberg’s partner, nobody’s heard from him all week. They’re both on leave, until everything gets settled, but Corey—the guy’s name is Corey Stout—he didn’t even come in to pick up his check. Nate’s dropped in every day, wanting to talk, wanting to hear what’s being said, but I got the feeling Corey is in a bad way over this. He’s a really nice guy, solid, honest. And he’s got three little kids. I’m guessing that he’s taking it hard.”
“Poor guy. Wrong partner.”
“Yeah, maybe. How are you, Roberta? Still trying to save the world? Still working so hard?”
“Come on, Ari. What else is there to do? Save the world. See a movie. Go to bed.”
“Yeah, and when was the last time you saw a movie? How about Marty? How’s he holding up?”
“Marty? He’s great. Maybe he’d like me to slow down a bit. Who knows? But he’s great. Listen, Ari, have a really good time next week. You and Melissa have earned it.”
“Thanks, Roberta.”
AFTER THAT CALL, I START
making a list with the names of everyone I might want to meet in the Ahmeti case. There would be a caseworker, of course, and if we were lucky, both kids would get the same foster family. But maybe not. The system’s never been more crowded. When the economy’s tough, kids come into our system like we’re offering dessert. Parents bolt, or overdose, or beat the hell out of anyone that seems weaker. And the kids just pour in. So who else? The dad. His lawyer. He’ll certainly have a lawyer, sooner or later. Not much money, so probably no lawyer for the children. That makes my job easier. See, if a child has a lawyer, that lawyer has to argue for what the child wants. But my job is to argue for what the child needs. And they’re not always the same. So it’s easier for me if there isn’t a lawyer.
Who else? The principal at Bashkim’s school. His teacher. Maybe a school counselor. No relatives. My friend at Catholic Refugee Services said the Ahmetis were pretty much on their own at this point but that there was one caseworker who had stayed in touch. I’d go to the apartment complex where they lived, too. See if there were any neighbors who knew the family. Also, the kids might have a pediatrician. I’d made the mistake of not tracking down a pediatrician before. And, of course, the CPS caseworker would probably order a counseling workup on both kids, so I would want to talk to that counselor too.
It’s a long list, and as I meet these people, the list will get longer. That’s why I wanted to be the Ahmetis’ CASA, because not every CASA will be this thorough. Some of them don’t know they can meet with anyone they want, whether or not the caseworker recommends it, and some of them think too many meetings just muddy the issues. Me, I want to know everything. I want to meet every person myself. And when it comes time to make a decision, I want to know that I did everything I could to make sure that the recommendations I make to the judge are the recommendations I would want a CASA to make for my own child.
24
Avis
THE DAY AFTER THE
shooting, I call before coming over. Lauren sounds tired and afraid, and when I say I will be there in an hour, she says she is going to see her mom. I had forgotten that her parents were in town. I don’t want to imagine what they are thinking—it is too much right now—so I say I will see her later and that she can call me, and to tell Nate I am coming.
When I arrive, I see Nate’s motorcycle through the bars of the back gate. It looks as if he has been tinkering with it again. The house is very quiet, as is the street. Nobody is out, though it’s going to be a beautiful day: bright, and just barely cool, with the sound of sparrows in the trees and a mockingbird somewhere down low.
I feel suddenly tired. Aware of all the ways that this moment might not have come to be. I ring the bell.
It seems like minutes before Nate answers.
“Mom,” Nate says. His voice sounds strained. I wonder if it surprises him to push out the word so uncomfortably.
“Hi, Nate.”
I reach up to hug him, and we embrace uncomfortably.
“Come in, Mom. I’ve been waiting for you to come. You could have come when Dad was here.”
He walks toward the kitchen, and I follow. I can smell coffee, and that will be a good way to begin.
“Do you want a cup?”
“Yes. I’ll get it. Do you want more?”
“No.”
We sit down then, at the table I brought them months ago. I wonder if Nate remembers that I came the day he was on suspension. Knowing what I know, I wonder what happened after I left, after Lauren had blurted out why he was home, after Nate had looked at her that way.
I’m glad we’re alone.
“How are you, Nate?”
He doesn’t answer.
“It just seems like your Dad and I can do better on our own right now.”
“I know, Mom.”
“Will you tell me about it? What happened?”
“Why, Mom? Haven’t you already made up your mind? Don’t you already know that I went crazy and killed a kid’s mom? Don’t you already know that, Mom? You and everyone else who watches the local news?”
His voice is angry and hurt and oddly high. And for once, this emotion does not make me afraid. What else could he feel?
I wait.
“They were both crazy, Mom. The man and the woman. He was just belligerent. Corey could handle him, but she was really crazy. She was shaking and grabbing her son and holding him by the neck and talking about Allah and how she would rather be dead, and her children too. I was trying to save that kid’s life, Mom. I was trying to protect my partner. That’s what I was doing.”
Nate believes what he is saying. Others are going to believe him too. Because it’s true. It is what Nate believed, it is what Nate was thinking. But it’s not the whole truth. And as much as I want it to be, as much as I want my son to be innocent now, I know that what Nate was thinking is not quite the right measure here. What was he thinking when he had Lauren by the hair? What was he thinking when he crashed that car? What would someone else have been thinking faced with that woman and her child?
I don’t speak.
“You’re my mother, and you don’t believe me. Dad believes me. Lauren believes me. The guys on the force believe me. My sergeant believes me. What does it say that you don’t believe me, Mom?”
“I believe you, Nate.”
And I do. I believe that this is what he believes and what he was thinking. How can I tell him that I don’t believe that what he was thinking was rational? That I don’t believe he can be trusted to think rightly? At least, not always.
“Do you, Mom? It doesn’t feel like you believe me. You’re sitting there, and I don’t think you believe me.”
“Nate. I love you. I have loved you your entire life. But I am afraid for you. I see—”
He interrupts me.
“What, Mom? You see what? What do you think you see? What do you think you know? Do you think I’m crazy? Do you think I’m some crazy-ass warrior, Mom? Some guy who can’t stop fighting? What do you know about it, Mom? What do you think you know?”
“Nate. Please.”
“Please what, Mom? You obviously think I’m crazy. Maybe you’ve always thought I was crazy. You always blamed me for Paul. You’re so on your high horse about a fight I had with Lauren. Did you ever think about my side of that? Did you ever think Lauren might have been at fault? No, it’s always Nate’s fault. I’m your son. I’m your only child. You’re supposed to be on my side.”
“Nate, what are you talking about? Stop this. I am on your side. I will always be on your side. I think you need help. I think something happened to you, in Iraq, this last time. I think you need to see a doctor.”
“So, it’s my fault. Right. Some crazy immigrant tries to kill her son, and I stop her from doing it, and I’m the one who’s wrong. That’s how you see this, Mom? That’s how you see it?”
He is standing now, and he is angry, and for an instant, I am afraid. But then a deep calm comes over me. If Nate is dangerous, if Nate cannot control himself, then I am the one who should be here. Better me than Lauren.
“Mom, do you know what it was like being your kid? Being the child who was born after Emily died, being the only kid you and Dad had? Do you know what that was like, Mom?”
“Nate, what are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you, Mom. You and Dad and me. It was so intense. I could never get away from it. Being everything to both of you. Just me. There was no one else. I don’t even have a cousin.”
“Nate, this isn’t the problem.”
“Yes, it is, Mom. It was too much. It was too much for me. Too much for Dad. Why do you think Dad’s with Darcy now? Don’t you see, nobody can take it? How much you care? How intense you are?”
I don’t know how this conversation got started. I don’t know how we are talking about me, about what is my fault, instead of about what has happened. I intend to place my hand on the table, but it comes down hard. It lands with a clunk, and it rattles the cup, and that startles me, so perhaps that is why my voice is not as strong as I want it to be.
“Nate. This isn’t what we are talking about. This isn’t the point.”
“You scared the hell out of me, Mom. You were always afraid something was going to happen to me. I was going to run in the street, or fall out of a tree, or get cancer or something.”
“Nate, I didn’t hold you back. I let you climb to the top of every monkey bar, ski in Utah when I knew there were avalanches and you would not stay on the trail, drive around in that truck as soon as you were sixteen. You joined the Army at eighteen, and you think I held you back? You think I was overprotective?”
“You weren’t overprotective, Mom. You weren’t overprotective.”
His voice is so bitter. And we both sit. Silent.
Finally, I speak.
“Nate, it’s true. I was always afraid for you. I tried not to let that limit you. I tried to let you be who you were. This bold, bold boy. I didn’t want to hold you back. The last thing I wanted was to make you afraid.”
“But I was afraid, Mom.”
His voice breaks.
“I’m scared, Mom. I’m going out of my mind. It’s not about you. It’s not about what you did or didn’t do. I always knew you loved me, you and Dad. Hell, I felt like the whole neighborhood loved me. I’d never have survived Iraq without that. Because you can’t imagine, Mom. What it was like there. What we had to do.”
He’s crying now, fat, slow tears that drop on the table between us.
“I thought I would die every day. Every hour. Not at first. Crazy shit happened in the first tour, but I don’t know, it didn’t bother me like it bothered some other guys. I mean, we were at war. We did what we were told to do. People died. Kids died. Women died. But I thought we had to do it. I thought it was part of a grand plan. What my generation had to do.
“And then, I don’t know, it just changed. I mean, what were we doing over there? What was the plan? Why were we there? Some hot-shit general would come to Baghdad, or some senator, and it was all the same. They didn’t know what they were doing. They didn’t know what they were talking about. They didn’t even listen to our officers, the guys who really knew what was going on. We were fighting one war in Anbar, and they were fighting some whole other war, with a whole different set of rules, in Tikrit. So what were the rules? Was I supposed to know who should die and who shouldn’t?
“And the way guys died, Mom. The way our guys died. Not when you were expecting it. Not when you were all geared up and looking for the enemy. No, guys just died going to take a piss. Picking up an old lady’s scarf. Backing up to throw a football. You never knew when.
“Or how it would happen. There’d be a lid on the ground, just a standard garbage lid. And you’d think the wind had blown it off. Like if you saw it on your street at home. And some guy would be talking, telling us about how he was going to paint his house for his wife, and then he’d lean down, start to pick up the lid, and the whole thing would blow. And the guy would blow too. Just blow apart, right in front of you. You’d be throwing your arms up, trying to get away from the blast, and you’d see the guy’s leg in the air next to you.
“And there were kids everywhere. They were hoping we would have chocolate. They’d want to play ball. Until one of them would light someone up. Someone would lean over to hand the kid a piece of chocolate, and boom, the kid would go up. A bomb on his back. Did he know it? Did he know he had a bomb? Who put it there?
“You’re afraid of the kids. You’re afraid of the old ladies. You’re scared as hell of any rock you can’t see around, any building with a hole up high, where a gun might come through. You’re looking for it all the time. You’re seeing it even when it isn’t there. And then guys are doing stuff. Stuff you can’t believe. Sick stuff. Cruel stuff. Stuff you couldn’t imagine in training. And the officers are looking the other way. And you’re thinking that if they weren’t doing that stuff, you probably would be dead already. Because maybe they’re scaring the locals a little. Maybe their crazy stunts are keeping things a little in control.
“And then you get back. And you’re home. And Lauren is asking me about my life there. And what am I supposed to say? You can’t even imagine it. It’s like a dream. Only you’re still so damn jittery. And I’m still looking for that hole in the wall up high, and the rock, and the kid with the bomb. I’m looking for it all the time. I can’t stop. If I hadn’t been looking when I was there, I’d be dead. I wouldn’t be here, Mom. But I’m still waiting to get killed here. I can’t stop feeling like something is about to happen, something bad, something I have to be ready for, I have to be quick, I have to be ready.”
I don’t think Nate has ever said this many words in one burst to me.
And perhaps for the first time I see that Nate is like Rodney, and like Sharlene. Something has happened to him that is more than he can bear. He wants to steel his courage, to soldier forth, but he keeps sliding back. I try to look at him, try to say something that will help, but he can’t look me in the eye, and I can’t think of what to say. I wait, looking at him, hoping the right words will come to me. I want to tell him that the pain will go away, that it will be possible to go back to the way life was before, but I don’t know this. I have seen that this doesn’t always happen, so the words won’t come.
He sets his head on the table, and I lay my hand on his hair.
I tell him that I love him, that I will always love him.
He doesn’t respond, doesn’t move.
But I know he is listening, and I tell him over and over.
IT’S FUNNY WHAT COMES TO
mind when the worst possible thing happens. After Jim left, I thought my life was over. I had tried so hard, and Jim had stopped loving me anyway. But failing isn’t proof that nothing matters or that we were fools to care. We fail even though things matter very much; it’s the possibility of failure that makes them matter even more.
I can hear Cheryl’s voice telling me her “fraction of a mite of an atom of a life is fucking great.” I can hear myself asking her why anyone would care if an ant stepped on the leg of the ant in front of it, or whether a mussel dried out after a high tide. And finally, for the first time since I wagged my middle-aged ass at Jim, who coughed, I can see clearly how crazy my thinking was. At fifty-three years old, I almost lost what I had somehow known from the time I was a small girl. I almost lost the knowledge that made my life work, the awareness that got me out of Sharlene’s world, the faith that made three decades of marriage possible and everything good that happened in those years: the family we had, the friends we made, the laughs we shared, the tears, the everything of it. At fifty-three, I almost forgot what Avis Briggs always knew.
It all matters. That someone turns out the lamp, picks up the windblown wrapper, says hello to the invalid, pays at the unattended lot, listens to the repeated tale, folds the abandoned laundry, plays the game fairly, tells the story honestly, acknowledges help, gives credit, says good night, resists temptation, wipes the counter, waits at the yellow, makes the bed, tips the maid, remembers the illness, congratulates the victor, accepts the consequences, takes a stand, steps up, offers a hand, goes first, goes last, chooses the small portion, teaches the child, tends to the dying, comforts the grieving, removes the splinter, wipes the tear, directs the lost, touches the lonely, is the whole thing.
What is most beautiful is least acknowledged.
What is worth dying for is barely noticed.
I GREW UP, THE BASTARD
child of a dirt-poor mother, in downtown Las Vegas. I raised my son in a town nicknamed Sin City, in a place most American families wouldn’t dream of bringing their children, in a state where prostitution is legal and gambling is sacrosanct. And the little world we created, Jim and I and all those other hopeful families, was a little bit of perfect, a little bit of just what children are supposed to have, of just what families are supposed to be.
“Tell me the truth, how much time do you spend wishing you lived somewhere other than Las Vegas?”
“That’s a trap. Don’t waste your time thinking of that. Live this moment.”