faces of trauma victims.
“Sam, I … David is hurt bad.”
“Mark,” I whisper, kneeling down on one knee next to him. I gently touch his shoulder, not knowing where he hurts. “What on earth? Are you hurt badly? Is David in this room?”
He slowly scoots back until his back is flush with the chair, closes his eyes, and exhales as if it’s all he can manage. “No. He’s in X-ray right now. I think they’re bringing him back here but I don’t know for sure. He’s got tubes sticking in him, he’s hooked up to machines … God.” Mark takes a slow, laborious inhalation and eases it out. “They kicked him … over and over … in his head. I tried to help him but two of them were on me. They had me … down, punching and kicking me.”
“They hurt your head,” I say, tentatively lifting my hand toward it but not touching him. It’s hard for my jet-lagged brain to compute my friend is hurt. Ninety-nine percent of me is still back in Saigon. Stepping off the plane into Portland’s airport and the cab ride on the city streets was a culture shock after the chaos and intensity of my ten days in Vietnam. It’s hard to catch up. “I mean, damn, Mark. What do the doctors say about you?”
“ER released me,” he says. “Nothing broken. Ribs are badly bruised. It’s a little hard to breathe and to … talk. I cough a lot, which really hurts. They stomped on my chest and my side. I hit one of them. I might have fractured a knuckle.”
“Are the suspects in custody?”
He shakes his head. “White … late teens, early twenties. There are these … benches along the walkway. It was about three this afternoon and Mark and I … we were sitting on one looking out at the river, having a Starbucks and sharing a muffin. We were sitting close to each other. Guess it gave us away. I saw them coming in my peripheral but I didn’t think anything about it. I was aware of them again, out of the corner of my eye, when they were about fifty feet away. When my cop instinct finally kicked in, I scooted away from David a little. But it was too late. The young men were moving straight at us saying things like … ‘faggots’ and ‘butt rangers’ and the like. We stood and … started walking in the opposite … direction but they were on us.”
“Can you ID them?”
He nods through a cough spasm, clearly in pain. “For sure the ones who worked me over. Maybe the two who got David, I don’t know. They split in the direction they came from. No one else on the walkway, so no witnesses, none I know of, anyway. Fat Dicks are on it. They got my report and left just a couple …” Mark coughs into the crook of his arm. He takes a deep breath, then, “They left a couple of minutes before you got here. Must have left a back way. Didn’t … want to deal with the press.”
“I’m so sorry about this, Mark. I’m so pissed right now I can’t think straight.”
His scabbed lips smile ever so slightly. “Do I look as bad as you? Jet lag is special, isn’t it?”
“No, you win, you look worse. What can I do right now? You want a lift home? I got a cab waiting.”
He shakes his head. “Got to wait to find out about David. It might … take a long time, hours maybe. I think he’s going to get a room on one of the upper floors. They said I … I could stay with him. I’ll just sleep. Got me on some crazy meds.”
“I’ll stay with you.”
“No. I just wanted to see you now that you’re home. Seeing you makes me feel better. Safer, for some reason.” He starts to smile but it ends up being a grimace. “Not exactly cop buddy banter, eh?”
I shrug. “We’re friends first.”
He pats my hand. “Yes, we are. Go home now and get some rest. I want … to hear about Saigon when we’re both in better shape.”
“Okay. Call me when you’re ready to leave and I’ll come and get you.”
He leans his head back against the wall and blinks slowly a couple times. “Deal. Glad you’re back … Sam.” His eyes flutter shut and his face relaxes.
I ask a passing nurse to point out another way down to the first floor and she directs me to a stairwell. I find the number for Captain Regan in my cell phone and tap it in. By the time I’m done filling him in on Mark, I’m in the first floor lobby and half hiding behind a coffee cart. I don’t want to deal with the media.
“Thanks, Sam,” Captain Regan says. “On another matter, you ready to come back to work?”
I knew that was coming. The shooting was two months ago and I haven’t been back since. The police shrink Doc Kari’s last words before I went to visit Samuel and Mai in Saigon was it was my decision when I want to go back. The unwritten guide for cops who have dropped the hammer on someone is you don’t return until you know you could do it again. No cop who has ever been forced to kill on the job wants a repeat of the experience, but the police shrink, the department, and the officer in question need to know he or she can do it again if required. A cop who can’t decide, or knows for certain he can’t, has no business on the street. The officer’s life, as well as those of other officers and citizens, might depend on him doing exactly that.
For the past two months, I’ve been telling my father and myself I will never again pick up a gun. I kept the proclamation even when I was in Saigon, and I was thrust into the middle of a deadly shooting. But now, after talking to Mark, it’s like I suddenly have an itch to get back and do some police work. I want to have it both ways, but I know I can’t.
“I don’t know, boss. I plan to make an appointment with the shrink tomorrow and talk about it. I’m sorry. I wish I had a solid answer for you.”
“I understand, Sam. Just know Deputy Chief Rodriguez wants to put your name back in Personnel as unassigned so we can fill your spot in Burglary. He was talking about doing it last week so it might have already happened. If it has, don’t worry about it. If you’re ready, I want you back and I’ll make it happen.”
“Thanks, Captain. I’ll call you as soon as I know what’s going on.” I stuff my cell back into my pocket and, not seeing any reporters, step out from behind the coffee cart. Rudy waves to me from where he is talking to the elderly woman behind the information desk. She is laughing at something he said. Quite the gregarious guy.
“How’s your friend?” Rudy asks, leading the way to the cab.
“He’s hurting and his partner is in bad shape. Still unconscious.”
He shakes his head. “Sorry to hear it, Sam. You said partner. Were they on duty?”
Whoops. I didn’t want to get into all that. But why shouldn’t I? Mark’s relationship with David isn’t a secret. In fact, it’s been going on for years while most of the hetero marriages I know of on the PD have crashed and burned.
“My friend is gay,” I say, watching him for a reaction. He opens the driver’s door, not giving me one.
“Ooooh, all right, all right,” he says over the roof. “Explains things some. Get in the front seat there if you want, Sam.”
I slide in and shut my door while Rudy struggles to fit in behind the wheel again. The seat is pushed back as far as it will go.
“Was it a, what do they call it, a gay bashing?”
I
