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“Officer Brady, requesting backup at 3313 on 17th.”
The static rang from the old radio for a couple seconds. Just as it about died down, the dispatcher’s higher pitched voice sent it off once more. “Stand by.”
He picked up the radio, pressing on the button. “Lieutenant Anderson, 10-44.”
“Denied. You are a homicide officer.”
“Well, sounds like it’s gonna be a fucking homicide one way or another, so I might as well go join the party in advance. I’m a block off, already turned that way.”
Static.
Silence.
“Granted. Over.”
Sighing, he hooked the radio back in its place and turned the wheel.
Fucked up smell.
Everything was fucked up, really, but for some reason, the damn smell stuck out to his fucked-up mind. A lot of beer, and a lot of cheese dust off whatever damn snacks the man had been eating. There was a large pizza box on the coffee table, an opened plastic bottle of off-brand nondescript pills, and several drink cans and bottles scattered around. Plastic foil covered everything else - the furniture, the table, the couch… a white plastic tarp covered the wall behind it. The young man sat on the couch, leaned back against it, the barrel of the Magnum firmly pressed against his right temple, index finger slightly trembling by the trigger. Pain and fear etched in his features, his eyes fixed on the responders.
They weren’t that much better off, themselves. Two young cops Hank had never seen before, probably from the next PD over. They glanced at each other, and at him as he entered, with large pupils and widened eyes. The guy had his gun trained onto the civilian, as if threatening to be shot would stop him from shooting himself.
“Lieutenant Anderson, DPD,” Hank spoke calmly, raising his empty hands. “Mind if I enter?”
“I said no cops… She didn’t listen… I called her to tell her I’ll kill myself, and she didn’t listen. She sent cops… I didn’t want this.”
“Easy,” Hank widened his stance, tilting his head. “Easy. If you want these two gone, we’ll have them gone.”
“I want you all gone.”
“How about we start with them, hm? Then you and I can have a little talk.”
That got the young man’s attention somewhat, and something changed in his mannerisms, in the way he moved his head to maintain eye contact… in his eyes. Biting his lower lip, he nodded, faintly at first.
Hank turned to the two rookies, nodding his head towards the door.
Obviously reluctant, and who wouldn’t. Training told you a man with a gun is dangerous even if that gun is trained on himself. Training told you everyone’s your enemy. Training told you never to leave a cop alone with an armed suspect. And they were too damn young to have any experience to override that training with.
“It’s okay. We’re just going to have a little talk. He’s cooperative.”
The female officer conceded first, lowering her gun, taking a few steps away. “Come on, Luke.”
Reluctant still, the other officer lowered his gun slightly as well. “We’ll be outside, Lieutenant.”
“Thank you.”
Lieutenant Hank Anderson stood, his muscles coiled painfully tightly, painfully incompetent in the face of this, his rank almost mocking him.
“Will you tell me what you’re doing with that gun, son?”
Hank glanced around the immaculate, largely empty room. The tarp was a bad sign. The emptiness was worse. He’d probably owned stuff once upon a time, it wasn’t a poor man’s house. So it had all gone towards friends. He’d called his sister to say goodbye. No cops.
Guy’s been planning it a while.
And those were always the worst.
“I’m just… Russian roulette.”
“What’s your name, son?”
“John. John Doe. My parents thought they’re being funny. My sister’s name is Jane.”
“She’s really worried about you, you know? She called us after your last message.”
“I know. I told her not to. I fucking told her not to call the cops yet. I told her to wait a few hours. But she never cares about what I say. She never cares about what I want.”
You’re losing him.
“You live here alone?”
John swallowed, clearing his throat. “I got a dog, Max. He’s over at my friend’s.”
“Is he young? Old? What breed is he?”
“German shepherd and pitbull mix. Four years old. He’s a really good dog. The best friend I could’ve asked for.”
“I bet he is. You know, you sound like a great dude. I know most people would want nothing to do with a pit mix.”
“Yeah, he was a rescue. I love him. I really love him. Too bad I can’t-- I can’t, officer. I can’t.”
Talk to me. What’s wrong? I’m sure there’s a way around.”
“There’s no way around, none. It’s all I’ve been thinking for weeks… months, now. There just is nothing that… nothing…”
“Did something happen to you? Emotional shock, unemployment? Bad breakup? Talk to me, son.”
“I’m fine. I’m fine, my life is fine, I’m fine, I’m perfect, I just-”
He shook his head. He sighed. A deep, pained sigh.
He opened his mouth to speak. Then closed it. He shook his head again.
Hank broke the silence, calmly. “Put the gun down, son.”
“I’m sorry, officer, I’m afraid I cannot do that.”
Sometimes, it would have been that simple.
Other times?
Well…
Other times, it was like this.
Whatever the cause, there was just too much distress to be helped easily. Too much distress to understand, probably even by the boy, himself. Whatever was going through his head, it had to be that damn bad.
“Quantum immortality.”
Hank snapped out of his reverie, glancing at the boy. “Hm?”
“You ever heard of that?”
“Can’t say I have. Quantum physics, sure, back in school, I guess.”
“The universe is supposedly infinite. And mathematically, there are an infinity of universes possible, and an infinity of possibilities. So, mathematically speaking, infinity means there is a chance we never die.”
“Well, I’d say death is pretty real, or I’d be out of a job.”
“Sure. Sure, yeah. Death is real, to others. But not to self.”
Hank narrowed his eyes and canted his head.
“If I shoot myself now, and I die, this theory- this- immortality thing. It supposes I could jump consciousness to another universe where I’ve lived, where it was an empty magazine, or the gun jammed, or you tackled me, or I changed my mind. And I’d continue while this body died.”
“And what if it’s wrong, just a theory? What if you do die?”
“There’s proof… Anecdotes… people doing this same thing, or surviving accidents, or having out of body experiences and returning to life but slightly different. It’s true, and it drives me insane, it scares me. I don’t want to die, and I don’t want to live forever, but I want to prove this theory true once and for all.”
“Sounds like something you could take up with a physicist. Or a therapist. If you put the gun down, we can even talk about this more.”
“You don’t understand!” his voice cracked. “I want to die. I want this to end. I want it all to end. But what if it doesn’t? What if I shoot myself and there’s nothing? What if I shoot myself and return? To suffer again? Maybe I will jump to another reality where I’ve lived. Maybe this is the reality where I live. Maybe I shoot myself and die in another universe and here I’ll still be here looking at you. Or somewhere else you’re also looking at me, officer, and I’m dead already. That’s why I said no cops. I don’t want anyone to witness this. I don’t want-”
Distressed, he shook his head, his hand quivering.
And Hank’s own hands weren’t doing much better, shaking slightly as he raised them and gestured. “Listen, son. This all sounds like a heavy topic, a little above my knowledge. What if you do have this one life? Wouldn’t it be better to discuss this through with more knowledgeable people? Wouldn’t it be interesting? Share thoughts with someone. And what of Max?”
John gave a half hearted shrug, “Max is fine, he’s with my best friend.”
“Don’t you want to see him again? Play with him again?”
Those sad, brown eyes fixated on Hank’s, and for the longest time, John said nothing, simply chewing on his bottom lip.
“I’m scared.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“I do, I do, I do, I do” and distress increased with each cadence, with each shake of his head to punctuate.
His finger trembled on the trigger, and the pistol trembled against his temple with his entire damn hand.
He closed his eyes tightly.
“Son, it’s gonna be alright, you just need-”
Bang.
Russian fucking roulette and the fucker… won?... on the first fucking go, with a majestic splatter of bone and blood and flesh and brain all over the white plastic tarp, a short seizure of his body, and he collapsed against the couch, gurgled breath wheezing from his body as his reptile brain refused to yet cease activity, refused to give up.
The door opened. The officers rushed in, yelling unintelligibly. It must have been less than two seconds, but to Hank, time lost all meaning, reality lost its hold.
Hank finally drew a breath - the coppery smell of blood tingling in his nostrils, flooding his mouth, tensing his muscles in a primal response. He tried to swallow it away but his jaw and throat muscles spasmed painfully.
“Lieutenant?” A hand grabbed his shoulder and shook him once. “Lieutenant!”
“I’m- I’m fine,” Hank blinked, finally taking his eyes off the now lifeless husk. He glanced at the officer speaking to him. He offered her a polite smile, and a pat on her hand. “Thanks.”
He let out a deep sigh and took two steps back.
“I’m sorry. I tried to… fuck, I tried. I tried to talk him down.”
He swallowed the knot in his throat.
“I tried.”
And now,
dissociate.
“I’ll go let him know you’re here.”
Hank automatically offered a smile in response to the cheery assistant, straightening his back. He glanced around the schoolyard. Kids swinging, kids running around, down the slide, up the monkey bars. Some with toys, some with each other, some alone.
Happy.
Alive.
His breath hitched. He swallowed the knot in his throat.
“Daddy!”
The familiar voice distracted him momentarily as he turned around with a mechanic smile, throwing his arms to the side, welcoming Cole’s enthusiastic tackle, affectionately ruffling his hair as the kid wasn’t quite eager to let go just yet.
“Come on, bud. We’re stalling traffic.”
With a wave towards the assistant, he grabbed onto Cole’s hand and led him out the courtyard.
The car was parked a little ways down the road, a far enough route for his brain to slip and wander places. But he was getting better at it. School helped… Cole helped, compared to what life and career had been like before. Sighing, he squeezed tighter on the tiny hand, turning his head to look down at Cole with a slight smile.
“How was school?”
“Oh my god, dad!” Cole rolled his eyes. “Boring! I ate spaghetti.”
“Is that so? That's the best thing you did today, huh?”
“It had cheese sauce. I like cheese spaghetti.”
“You never have it at home.”
“Well, I don’t like your cheese spaghetti!”
Hank let out an involuntary, unsettlingly genuine laugh. Could scratch cheese spaghetti off the list, then.
Once by the car, he let go of Cole’s hand and fished for the keys, pressing the unlock button. And long before he could react, Cole had long called gunshot, eagerly pulling at the front door.
“In the backseat, champ.”
Cole released the handle with a dramatic gesture, throwing his head back with the fury of a theatre diva and whining as if he’d been sentenced to hanging. “When can I sit up fronnnnnt?”
“When you’re twelve,” he slammed the door once Cole had climbed in with another protestful ‘but daaaaad’. “Now, shush and buckle up.”
Although he got into the car, he sure did not go quietly, still very much protesting. Repeatedly. On and on as Hank circled the car and took his own place, on and on as Hank started the engine, and eventually vanishing into random chatter about his school day, random chatter about Minecraft (that damn thing still around huh), random chatter about how he wants a pony next year and and and
“Today’s a big day, huh? You’ve turned six. You’re old enough for responsibilities now.”
He could see, he could feel, his son perk up, excitement almost physically shining off him. “Does that mean we’ll get a puppy?”
“Of course, sport.”
“One like Beethoven?”
“That’s the only thing you’ve been asking ever since I showed you those damned movies, isn’t it?”
“When are we going? Now? Today? Now?”
“Aren’t you hungry? Thirsty? Sleepy?”
“Puppy first, McDonald’s after.”
Hank chuckled, “Master Negotiator, aren’t you?”
Unlike your dad.
His smile faded once more.
It didn’t matter how much he’d heard ‘you tried’ and ‘you’re a good cop, these things happen’ between that damn moment earlier and now. It dulled little of the stinging pain of failure. A bad day, a mistake, meant a life. Why’d he answer that fucking call? Why’d he try to be a smartass?
The boy had planned to off himself, that was true, Hank kept trying to tell himself that. There was nothing to do, then. Someone even more skilled at negotiations and de-escalation might’ve still lost someone like that. He’d been at it for so long… Even Hank knew a little of that despair, of that pain. It had haunted him as long as he could remember, what do the fancy folk call it, again? Call of the void.
He glanced at his own gun, catching the light as it lay in the open glove box. Cole was humming something in the backseat in an all too cheery, all too oblivious state.
Russian fucking roulette, huh.
What were the odds to go out the first time around? One in six? One in eight? Depending on the magazine, he’d guess.
Maybe the crazy fucker did survive. Maybe he did jump to a different universe. Maybe death was indeed a lie, a construct, an improbability in the grand scheme of physics and mathematics.
But did it really matter to Hank? To the other cops? To miss Jane Doe? To Max?
No, for everyone the boy had left behind, death was all too real and all too final.
“One, two, three, four, five, once I caught a fish alive.”
What a stupid, stupid day. What bullshit. What fucking bullshit.
“Six, seven, eight, nine, ten, then I let it go again.”
Life was bullshit, too. Just endless fucking bullshit. For him, for others, for the fucking fisherman in the song Cole was singing.
“Why did you let it go? Because it bit my finger so.”
Mayhaps the fish, too, simply leapt to a different universe, huh.
“Which finger did it bite?”
Which fucking finger out of all parallel incarnations of fingers suffered the fish’s wrath?
“This little finger on my right.”
Oh, Cole, what would I ever do without you?