Thinking about it gave him a terrible case of hindsight. What if he had stopped the killing after the first two, the ones who had really attacked him? Would things be different? While Elena could only dwell on the guilty verdicts, it had amazed him to no end that there had been a couple of acquittals mixed in. Would he be free if he had stopped at that point and found a way to surrender?
It was certainly possible, but watching the legal system at work had made him pretty cynical about it too. Chances were just as good that the jury had given him those acquittals because they could afford to. If there hadn’t been so many others they could hang him on, it would be silly to expect it to happen that way. Because when you challenge authority, authority will fuck you over however it has to.
Randy had always known that’s how it was, and now he was living it.
* * *
So it went for a long time. Outside of the walls of the prison, life went on without him, and Elena was there every single week to keep him updated. She told him about how things were between Vincent and Rosemary, the latest shenanigans at Bourbon Street, and the letters she and their friends had written to defend his name. She told him that she was taking night classes after getting off work at her restaurant job. Journalism, of all things.
One day she brought him a news article, and had the guards deliver it to him as he walked to the visiting booth. He read it as he sat on his side of the glass. It was a story about a near-shooting in Tennessee. A sheriff’s deputy had arrested a drunk driver, pretty much without incident. But the man’s equally intoxicated brother wasn’t being so cooperative. In fact, he was fighting like hell to take over the wheel, and threatening to shoot anyone who tried to stop him. The lone deputy had his gun out at that point, but the already-arrested man in the patrol car kept screaming that his brother was full of shit, there was no gun in the car. It took a hand being fractured with an ASP baton to get the second drunk under control, but the deputy did it with no bloodshed, and indeed there had been no gun in the car.
Far from being commended for it though, the deputy was reprimanded for not putting his own safety first. When asked by the local newspaper why he did what he did, when the shooting would have been found justified, he answered, “That man had four brothers and they’re all shooters. I didn’t want my town to be the next Forest Hill.”
Randy looked up from the article, his mind spinning. He put the phone receiver back to his ear.
“Baby, that man’s alive because of you,” his wife said. “You did some good in the world.”
* * *
Randy didn’t get a lot of sleep that night. He stared at the white-painted ceiling, with the overhead light that never went out. It was tough enough to keep telling himself he was justified, without throwing in questions about balance. Was there such a thing as a right to sacrifice people if it meant saving others, even if you were saving many times more?
In war, there had historically always been commanders who had to knowingly send soldiers to their deaths, in diversionary attacks and such, because the math stated that the greater number would survive that way. Did that make it right to make someone face certain death rather than simply sharing the risks with everyone else?
Randy had never believed so. He believed it was selling them out to do so, and you never sold out the innocent, or people who were on your side. And some of the cops he had killed had not really been part of the problem at all, other than their failure to quit the corrupt department. Was it worth having taken their lives if it meant others would live?
Well, was it?
* * *
Randy awoke to the sound of jangling keys. His eyes cracked open, and he saw Veronica at the door to his cell. She was holding some paperwork and sliding the key into the lock. She was alone.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“You’ve got some paperwork from the court of appeals,” she replied.
“There’s not going to be any appeal, and you know you’re not supposed to come in here alone.”
“It’s also been quite a while since anyone’s looked at your cell.” She began to turn the key.
Randy sat up on his bed. “Just put the papers on the door. Go get help if you want to come in.”
“Why? You still figure on getting one of us?” She smiled mischievously. “I think we both know you don’t really have it in you to do that.” She turned the key and the door unlocked.
Randy grabbed the handle of his walker and stood. “I swear to fucking God I am serious, if you are so STUPID as to walk in here alone, you are going to PULL the LUCKY GODDAMN FUCKING NUMBER!” Randy grabbed the hardcover novel he had been reading and threw it at her, but it was deflected by the bars. “NOW LOCK THAT MOTHERFUCKING DOOR YOU STUPID BITCH!” Randy began advancing, such as he was able to, and she yanked the door shut. It took a few moments of fumbling with the keys to get it locked, but she did it, and Randy gave her the time she needed to get it done.
Veronica stood back from the door, as Earl Foster came running to her aid. Then Randy turned around, went back to his cot and lay down, facing the wall.
Veronica never spoke to him again.
* * *
Randy knew something would be coming down for this, but not what it would be. It probably wouldn’t be fun though.
He didn’t like himself much for what he had done. But at the same time, he wasn’t going to use any trickery, or be in any way dishonest about the fact that this was still war. He was still fully intent on getting another one. He just didn’t want it to be her.
Things were quiet until after lunch. In the early afternoon two guards showed up at his door and unlocked it. “Come with us Mister Gustin,” one of them said. “And if you’d like to try and get one of us now, that’s completely okay.” Randy considered it briefly and decided against. When he made his attempt, it was going to be a serious one.
They took him down the hall to Earl Foster’s office and showed him in. The cell block commander himself was standing in front of his desk. “What’s this?” Randy asked, “Are we doing the five-minutes-in-a-room thing?”
“Just have a seat,” Earl replied. Randy sat, and the commander sat behind his desk. The guards closed the door and left them alone, but they were undoubtedly right outside. “Veronica is taking a week off without pay for trying to walk in there alone. I hope you’re happy about that.”
“Well, it could’ve been worse.”
“I know. You probably could have gotten her, but you warned her instead. I want you to know that I’m grateful to you for doing that.”
“It doesn’t mean anything has changed.”
“I know that, and I believe you’re serious about what you say you want to do, if you’re able to. We take a lot of precautions around here but anything is possible. I certainly don’t want to see that happen, and I also don’t want to see what might happen to you in the attempt. So I want to make a deal with you to drop that nonsense.”
Randy gave up a small laugh. “Come on, you don’t make deals with death row inmates.”
“Not normally. The typical inmate gets here by raping and murdering defenseless people.”
“Look, my war was originally just with the one department that started all of this, but now it includes any agency that takes hostile action against me. Right now that’s you. So what do you want? You want me to just sell out my principles?”
“That’s exactly what I want you to do, and I don’t expect it to be cheap,” Earl replied. Randy put his hands to his face and shook his head with disbelief. “It’s pretty easy for you to lump us all in the category of evil, isn’t it?” Foster asked.
“You’re finishing the work of the man who tried to shoot me in the back. So how else would you like me to call this?”
“I presume that you know what we do here,” Foster said. Executions in Washington were so few and far between that Randy couldn’t remember when the last one was, but he knew. “On very rare occasions, we take the worst of the worst and we put them down. Do you think we s
houldn’t be doing that?”
“I think when your job requires you to kill somebody who’s only guilty of defending themselves, then that somebody might just have a problem with that.”
“So what would you like us to do?”
“What I’d do if I were in your shoes. Refuse the job.”
“Well, that isn’t going to happen. We do a job that needs to be done here. I might have my own reservations about your case, but I don’t get to make that call. This is a job where other people make the decisions.”
“That’s exactly what the Nazi’s tried to say at –“
“Don’t go digging up Nazi’s on me. Did you yourself not carry out some questionable executions? Did you not kill at least a few people who only wanted to bring you in alive?” There were a few who came to mind. “Here’s what I’m telling you. I see where you’re coming from. And I want you to see where I’m coming from. I don’t like being a part of what’s happened to you, but there’s nothing I can do to save you, do you understand that?” Randy did understand. “We don’t make deals with murdering scum in this place, but I’m making a deal with you. I’m selling a piece of my principles too, so just tell me what you want in exchange for yours.”
Randy could scarcely believe the man was making such an attempt at pacifying him, but he thought he’d throw something on the table just for the fun of it. “All right then, how about some all-nighters with my wife?”
“We can do that.”
Randy had the first real laugh he’d had in a very long time. “You can not do that.”
“Mister, we get away with shit in this place that would have the public screaming if they knew. Don’t tell me what we can’t do, and don’t tell me your principles are going to be that cheap either. Now what else do you want?”
Randy thought about that for a second. “Well, first, to know the real reason you’re doing this. I don’t think it’s just because of the threat.”
Earl glanced around, as if to make sure no one was listening. “You remember that article your wife brought you, about the guy in Tennessee?” Randy nodded. “There’s been other cases that haven’t made the news. Lots of them. You’ll never see this in print, but we estimate that on balance, you’ve saved a couple hundred lives, cops and citizens both.”
It finally dawned on Randy that the man was serious. He was technically still part of the problem, but he also wanted to make peace, and he was willing to go a big extra mile to do it too. It was something Randy had never in his life expected, and it seemed to him that such an effort should not be spat upon.
So they negotiated.
* * *
It was a week and a half later when the guards came for Randy. They took him on a long walk to a solitary confinement cell with a solid door. They showed him in, and locked the door behind him.
Elena was waiting.
Randy had little remaining sense of what time it was, or even what day of the week it was, but it was a Friday night and she was dressed for it. She had a red dress with no straps that Randy had never seen before, and had to have been picked up just for the occasion. She had silver earrings and a necklace that he had given her long ago. She was wearing the contact lenses that made her eyes blue, which she had always loved but Randy had never seen the point in, because he had always liked her eyes just as they were. He had to admit though that they looked pretty nice.
“Hi baby,’ she said as she came to him. He put a hand on her shoulder and pushed the walker aside, then they embraced. And kissed. He hadn’t smelled her hair in a very long time and it was wonderful. Her beauty was so out-of-place here that it reminded him of times he’d been on a construction site, working with a crew of dirty ironworkers, when some cute girl came walking through. The girl wouldn’t look out of place anywhere else, but amid the dirt and grunge and the filthy hardhat-wearing construction workers, she’d stand out in a way that made concentrating on work impossible.
“They let me bring anything I wanted to,” Elena said, and she pointed toward a paper grocery bag sitting on the cot. They sat down and she opened it up. The first thing she pulled out was a wine bottle.
“Bubbly?” Randy asked. “But I hate bubbly!”
“I know, that’s why I replaced it with Jack Daniels and Sprite.” Randy hugged her again, and Elena poured a couple glasses.
Randy downed the first one in one shot. “What else is in there?” he asked. Elena pulled out an MP3 player and turned it on. It began playing the familiar strumming sounds of the song that had always been theirs, and Randy’s smile fell from his face. “Sweetheart, that song’s kind of been ruined for me. It was playing on the radio when all this started.” He reached for the player, but Elena stopped him.
“Baby, this is our song. And I’m taking it back for us.” She put the music player out of his reach, and then began to slip her dress down. Suddenly it made no difference whatsoever to Randy what song was playing.
Elena gave Randy back a big part of the life that had been stolen from them. And Randy showed her that he wasn’t nearly as crippled as everyone believed.
* * *
Earl Foster was true to his word. He wasn’t able to pull this off for them every weekend, but he typically managed it a couple times a month. Randy had also negotiated for a laptop, and Earl supplied that as well. It wasn’t much of one, just a small netbook with Word installed on it, but for his final writings it was all Randy needed. The archaic method of pen and paper that had gone out in the twentieth century just was not going to cut it for what he needed to do. As soon as he had all his work thus far typed into his encrypted computer folders, he shredded the papers and flushed them, to make sure they stayed private until he wanted them released.
The last thing Randy had wanted was actually harder to pull off than the first two. It was one full pot of real coffee every day, with mocha-flavored creamer. The smell of good coffee in the halls of the cellblock elicited some real shouts of anger.
With the new agreement in place, things were a lot different. He could talk to the prison staff in a civil tone, which took a lot more stress off of him than he had expected. If he needed something, he could ask. He could let his guard down around them, and they could do the same. Sometimes they could even have real conversations.
He found out things about them that always felt unexpected. Dale, the beefy guard whom he’s always considered the bully of the place, had actually grown up being the lanky runt in school who took most of the gratuitous beatings. It wasn’t until after graduating that he had hit the gym devotedly to make sure he wouldn’t have to live through that again. And Randy had to admit, while he typically carried an air of “I’m ready to trash your ass” around him, he never did more to anyone than was required.
Earl himself had two daughters who had both joined the Army. He was extremely proud of both, but one was already gone, having been killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. His other daughter had narrowly dodged a few of them too. Randy could see how tortured he was as he told about how he had begged her to come home, and cried when she told him how it would make her feel to abandon her comrades and the cause her sister had died for.
To Randy, it was almost surreal to hear such things coming out of people who wore uniforms. Randy hated uniforms. They made people look like monsters. He had tried with almost complete success to exterminate an entire group of them. But inside of those uniforms, in some cases at least, were real human beings.
It gave him a lot to think about.
* * *
Randy didn’t have any ideas for his last meal, but Elena did. She wanted him to request a meal brought to him by her, so that’s what he did. This would be the only chance she’d ever have to cook him a meal again, so she didn’t want to let it slip by.
In his cell, they had a Mexican dinner she had made at the restaurant and brought to him. Randy marveled at how perfectly everything was prepared, considering how hard it must have been making this meal. They had enormous barbecue beef burritos with vegetables
and rice inside, some smaller tacos on the side, and a big bowl of ceviche. The Mexican seafood salad still wasn’t Randy’s favorite, but he ate it with a smile anyways. Elena was the one who would have to remember this meal. .
They talked about little stuff. Ninja had gotten bitten yet again while trying to play with a baby raccoon, but as usual she’d be okay. Elena was now working on a two-year degree in her journalism classes. The Forest Hill Police Department had still not reconstituted, and the Sheriff’s Department had taken over patrolling the town. And Randy told her about what was on his laptop, and he gave her the password she would need for retrieving it when the time came.
They finished their meals and put them aside. “Elena,” Randy said, “I really need to know if you’ll be okay without me.”
“Randy, how does anyone ever know if they’ll be okay forever?” she replied. “Did everything turn out okay for you? You had to roll your dice, and I have to roll mine. But you gave me everything I need, and I’ve got all your friends to call if I need help. I can handle this now.” That was as much comfort as Randy could ask for.
“They’re coming for me pretty soon, so please listen,” Randy went on. “I don’t want you to be there when it happens.” Elena’s tears began, and he put his arms around her. “I need to go out like a soldier, and I can’t do that if I have to see you in pain. So we need to say goodbye here.”
Randy held his wife as long as he was able to. She was the one he loved, the one he had given everything for. There had been many times he had asked himself if he would do things different if he could. But as he held her, he thought of what it would have done to her to see him killed senselessly with no justice for what had happened, or disgraced and put on parade after giving up his fight. That thought gave him his answer. From the moment the shooting had begun at least, there wasn’t one bloody thing he would do differently.
Dale came and informed them that Elena had to leave before it was time, and they had another ten minutes. Then he left them alone. Everything Randy and Elena needed to say had been said, so they spent that time kissing like teenagers on ecstasy. When their time was up, to Randy’s surprise, it was Veronica who came to escort Elena out. Again, she violated the rule about opening the door with no assistance standing by. Randy guessed that it was her way of saying she was right all along.