When the Light Lay Still Read online

  Ezekiel took a slow breath before speaking.

  “Yes, sir. Officer Williams and I responded to an emergency call: two teenagers involved in a violent altercation outside of the new Ump Tower. As we approached the two teenagers, Dushane Reed fled the scene on foot. Williams pursued Dushane first, I hung back to make sure the kid with the busted lip was okay. Williams ordered Dushane to stop, as did I. He was fast, and knew the area better than we did, so it took some time to catch up to him. While fleeing, he screamed back to us that we were chasing the wrong person. It wouldn’t be until later that we’d learn, as I’m sure you’re aware, that Dushane hadn’t been the instigator of the fight, but the other individual, Patrick Powell. Regardless, the suspect continued to run from us.”

  Ezekiel stopped for a moment to compose himself. “I stopped running and doubled back for the patrol car; it just made sense in the moment. I caught up to Williams, picked her up, and we quickly caught up to Reed. He—as I cornered him, getting out of the car, and Officer Williams at his back, he started to pull out a cell—”

  “Thank you, Officer Jones, that will be all,” the prosecutor said, looking up for the first time and flashing a genial smile, as absurd as it was complacent. Ezekiel looked over to where he’d been used to finding a judge, and turned back to the prosecutor.

  “With all due respect, sir, I haven’t reached the point in the incident regarding Officer Williams’ discharge,” Ezekiel said, and bit his tongue back when the end of the statement trailed off on something close to a laugh.

  “We appreciate your… willingness to testify, but as I’m sure you’re aware, this isn’t a trial. We simply need to gather details regarding the incident, and we’ve reached the end of what I believe that either I orthe jury can listen to without consideration of your unique position in this matter,” the prosecutor parried back, the words stale and sticky from sitting on his tongue for so long.

  “My unique position? Sir, if this is regarding my donation to—”

  “It’s not just your charitable actions, Officer Jones. You are not under review—not here, anyway—but given the sensitive nature of this case, and yes, your contribution to the Reed family, we must also consider your actions during the Chicago riots two years ago. Forgive me, but we can’t discount that you have had issue with proper judgement in the past.”

  It took Ezekiel everything he had to keep from sucking loudly at his teeth.

  It always came back to Chicago. He’d not done anything illegal, a lifetime ago, during the riots. He served the badge he’d been given, against those who would abuse that power, against an industrial machine made for justice but malformed by fear.

  He was a fool. It wasn’t just Chicago they were thinking about. There was the media attention, the questions about whose side he was on. Perhaps most ridiculous of it all, there was that godforsaken nickname, Tank.

  “You were suspended, weren’t you? Ultimately, no formal charges were brought against you, but given that, and considering your recent contribution to the Reed family—and neither Officer Williams nor the boy you claim instigated the attack corroborate your version of the events—we must consider there is reasonable doubt to your account. We appreciate your time, Officer Jones.”

  “Okay, but I really don’t think you’re—”

  “Thank you, Officer Jones, that will be all,” the prosecutor said, looking up from the legal pad to Ezekiel. There was a moment then that would stick like a thumbtack in his mind: Ezekiel edged on speaking, his mouth open to collect flies or dust in the air, to collect all the things they were ignoring that hung in the air around them. Instead, Ezekiel closed his mouth, looking to the three of them; Aaliyah Monroe with arms latched around the Reeds’ shoulders, one of many shadows that wouldn’t be televised like the rest of the mess had been.

  This wasn’t justice, Ezekiel realised. This was just law. He’d never found anything grand in this part of the process: a prosecutor and a jury, free from the oversight of a judge, was nothing but an abdication of responsibility. There had to be a better way, and as he gave a jutted nod, and carried the eyes of the room with him on the way out, he knew he wouldn’t find it behind the badge his father wore.

  It would take months for the grand jury to officially reach a decision, but Ezekiel didn’t need to wait with bated anything for an answer. Officer Williams was free to patrol the streets after a long staycation. The Reeds would have bullet holes and blankets carrying the fading scent of their son. Ezekiel, it seemed, got a light brown bagged lunch on the steps of the courthouse.

  He didn’t consider what to do after he ate, though, with the day or with the rest of his life. But the world hadn’t finished with him as a woman in a trench coat and a perhaps-not-even-twice-worn suit sauntered up the steps towards him.

  “This seat isn’t taken, is it?” she said, with the savoury sweetness of a nurse, or death-brokering bureaucrat. Ezekiel glanced around the oversized steps of the courthouse and saw not a single person in sight.

  “I guess not,” he said, staring at the road and taking a bite of his increasingly unsatisfying bologna sandwich.

  “Good.” The woman settled. “What are you doing out here by yourself? Seems kind of a crummy day for an outside lunch.”

  Ezekiel shrugged. He watched as the woman pulled out a wrinkled pack of potato chips and a bag of Ump Chocolates and proceeded to dump the chocolates into the bag of chips and shake it up. He found himself sifting through the catalogue of legalese in his head in the hopes of finding some prohibition for such a snack food abomination.

  “So, are you an officer?” she asked between mouthfuls of candied chips.

  Ezekiel parted his lips to speak but looked at her again and paused. “Something tells me you already know the answer to that, ma’am. Is IA always so bad at interrogation?” he asked, before finishing his sandwich in one bite, defiantly forcing it in with a finger. Better to chew the fat he’d put together that morning than hers.

  If he’d blinked, Jones would have missed the seamless shift from flustered damsel to smirking superiority. She poured the rest of the bag’s contents into her face and swallowed, giving a theatrical sigh of satisfaction.

  “You have a bit of paranoia about you, don’t you, Officer Jones? Do you suspect every beautiful woman wanting your attention is out for your badge?” She leaned her elbows back on the long stone steps.

  “Just the ones with Glocks under their coats,” he returned. He glanced her way expecting to see defeat: that she’d concede and leave him to his unopened lemonade and sparkly disposition. What he saw, however, was the same look his Chief Cori had used, back before the shitshower that rained on their department after Dushane’s murder.

  “…Well, what else?” she asked.

  Ezekiel blinked at the question, not sure what to do with it at first. After mulling it over for a moment, washing the sandwich down with his lemonade, he figured, what the hell. He was certain that there were seven different kinds of wrong in Internal Affairs approaching him like this, and it wasn’t like there was somewhere he’d aimed to be. So, instead of rushing to an increasingly cold apartment to productively stare at a wall, he figured there wasn’t too much harm in humouring his lunch companion.

  “It’s a little excessive, don’t you think? The piece at your hip, a semi-automatic? Between that and the one under your coat I don’t see much use for that switch blade tucked under your pants, left ankle.” Ezekiel was showing off, but after the day he’d had, he didn’t much care.

  The woman chuckled.

  “You are perceptive, aren’t you? Granted, you missed the Taser, but three out of four isn’t bad, former Officer Jones.” She added a slow, slightly sticky clap at the end.

  Ezekiel didn’t flinch, or not outwardly at least. Former. He hadn’t even the chance to tell a bottle of Jameson about his recent discussion, the day before, to no longer be associated with a system of problematic, pacifying pride. Even if he had mentioned it, anywhere outside the office, there’s no way
she could have found it out in such a short time—unless she’d been spying on him. The thought never occurred that she’d found out from someone at the precinct. As much as they now seemed hell-bent on destroying the oath, his brothers never gossiped about one of their own, with or without a shield.

  “Who are you?” It’d come out more perp-oriented than he’d meant, but the woman only chuckled, longer this time.

  “I’m not IA. I’m just someone who wanted to have a bite with you, Tank, and maybe a bit of substance-free small talk. For instance—oh, I don’t know—what are your thoughts on Special Prosecutor Eustace Fargo?”

  Oh, hell-fucking-no.

  The thunder had been coming for a while, since the attack on the White House. Everyone in blue, everyone with a thrice-worn tie and briefcase, felt it on the wind as much as they did beneath their trigger fingers. Ezekiel, like most in his precinct, had felt some relief when an answer had arrived in the form of President Gurney and the proposed Judge system. After years of bumbling celebrities or other brands of idiot, it felt like a return to sense.

  Of course, Fargo wouldn’t get his way, not entirely. Gurney would rein him in, make something practical out of Fargo’s pipe dream. He wouldn’t let such a chaotic plan become anything more than rage bites for the masturbatory news cycle.

  That was, of course, until it did.

  Until officers were tripping over one another for what some expected to be a fast track to better pay—if not in pennies, then in power. Until red-faced co-workers filled the precinct, not-so-prodigal sons stung and singing, Nah, I didn’t get rejected, the whole thing is just a crock is all.

  Until this Jehovah’s Witness of Justice had decided to pop a squat and ask him if he’d heard the good news about Eustace Fargo.

  Of all the things he’d needed—an umbrella, another sandwich with more meat and a spritz of mustard, a bullet to the head—furthest from the top would have been anything to do with the Judges.

  “All due respect, ma’am, you can get the hell on with that,” Ezekiel told her. He began to gather his things, which seemed fewer and fewer by the moment.

  “All due respect, you’re going to check that attitude before we get anywhere near the Academy. I swear, if I came all the way to Cincinnati for some washout cadet with a hot head, someone’s catching hell… I saw you in there. You did good, Jones.” The woman’s tone had softened but become more dangerous, reflecting a kind of kindling only those who handled fire could know.

  I didn’t see you, Ezekiel nearly responded, but he decided to tread lightly as possible.

  “So, were you serious? Or just throwing a hissy fit?” she asked.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Quitting. After all this, all you’ve gone through to get here, you’re ready to call it a day?” she said, and this time it was Ezekiel’s turn to chuckle.

  “Williams... She saved my life more than once, she was supposed to be my partner, someone I could trust more than anyone to do the right thing, and she... Yeah, I’m serious. I worked hard to become an officer, like my father. More than that, though, I thought I was joining something that mattered. I’m not givingup, I’m just trying to find out where I need to be. Corny as it is, I want to figure out how to fix this, how to do the most good for the most people.”

  “You sound like Fargo,” the woman said, bluntly. “You know, what happened at the White House?”

  Ezekiel hadn’t told anyone, save for Williams between burgers in other places they never went together, about his love or admiration for Fargo. While it’d be a bit much to say that he had posters, he did read every interview he’d had, few as they were.

  Despite never having met him, Ezekiel felt that he could judge Fargo’s integrity, his honour. Even after the Judges program was announced officially, and the critics rose in droves, it never seemed all that bad an idea. If Ezekiel had to point to a reason, it was the same thing that got him the badge in the first place: that there was right and wrong and no room for deviations between. Just justice, that thing so free from the uncanny fucking valley that separated it from mere law.

  “It’s not like Fargo has some hard-on to be patriotic. He… There’s something different about this. It isn’t from the heart, or at least not as much as people think, Jones. The same thing could have happened at that coffee shop across the street and I’d still be here talking to you. The thing is, he is and always has been a judge. He sees everything, everyone, for what it is, absolutely, and makes the call he needs to make. He did the same thing with law enforcement, and I think if you stop, and consider what that means, you wouldn’t have much of a reason not to check the program out, at least.”

  Damn, she was good.

  Looking at it through that lens, he had trouble offering up any kind of defence, but, from the look on the woman’s face, she’d gathered that already.

  “…Why me…?” Jones eventually asked, and the woman glowed with the unabashed joy of a fisher getting a bite.

  “Well, you’re clean, Jones. You’re also damn good, you proved that in Chicago. Ezekiel Jones, the rookie who stopped a tank with balls and a single bullet. You saved lives that day, and more importantly, you showed appropriate judgement in dire circumstances. But I’m not here to stroke your ego. You’re not special, Jones; but you’re someone I think can see that what we’re doing right now? It won’t hold. The tumour within the body of law enforcement will only grow and grow if we continue to ignore it. So this is your moment, former Officer Jones. Are you going to nut up, and do something about it? Or are you going to sit on the sidelines while the rest of us do the hard work?” She stood up and brushed the dust off her coat.

  Ezekiel stared at his hands for a while as if they had an answer. He felt the rain from that night, pattering over them. He felt them clasping his partners’ hands, on his first day in Cincinnati, in an unspoken promise that together, they could carry out justice. He looked up, finally, to see forward.

  “Well, I think if you’re going to be my superior, I should at least know your name, ma’am,” he said, with a lightness his words hadn’t known for months. The woman rolled her eyes, extending a hand to Ezekiel to help him to his feet.

  “I’m not shit to you yet, Jones, but it’s Marisa Pellegrino. You should get home and get packed. Our flight leaves tonight at nine. I slid your plane ticket under your front door when I missed you at your apartment earlier, so try not to get it muddied.” She grinned, and Ezekiel laughed.

  WAS HE INSANE, boarding a flight that night, with one bag to check and a million more unseen, to chase after a notion that could well be gone in a matter of months?

  Probably.

  But as Ezekiel watched the world beneath him grow smaller and darker by the moment, he hoped that there would be light to be found when he’d land.

  AALIYAH

  Friday, July 16th 2038

  17:41

  THE GUN RUBBED wrong in my hand. It promised to take everything and give everything, and it was all a fucking lie.

  I didn’t want to see him. I didn’t want to remind myself of the us that was in that glance, behind those sunglasses. Those eyes, big brown shitstorms of all the mistakes Aaliyah Monroe could have avoided if she were the type to follow logic. I could fill this fucking moleskin with everything I didn’t want, though, so I’ll spare you, whoever you are.

  “’Liyah, it’s just us here. Just. Us. Isn’t nothin’ you can do ta convince me you gon’ kill the fatha of yo’ chil’ while he half-nayki in bed. You aren—ain’t no killer,” he finished, lamely.

  “Thurgood, what the hell are you thinking? What the hell am I doing here? What the hell is our son doing here?” I felt my fingers trembling against the trigger—calm down—I moved my index to the outside of the trigger guard as not to blow his head off his shoulders.

  “You know you ain’ gotta call me that,” he said with a laugh to the woman now aiming one of his own triple-barreled contraptions at the thinnest target in the room.

  “Y
ou just aimed at my dick, didn’t you?”

  “I just aimed at your dick, yes.”

  He scooted about the bed, his sunglasses making his grin all the more grotesque, somehow. “Kettle, you ain’t eva hel’ a piece this long in yo’ life, jus’ give i’ ’ere,” he said, reaching out. He stopped at an awkward angle when I stepped forward. Blind as he was, he always knew how to find me. The weight of the gun was cold and dead, and everything else I’d taught myself how to be at this point in my life—but, eh, here we are.

  “Where’s our fucking son, Colin.” I didn’t so much ask as order, taking a few steps forward with the pistol growing more embedded in my hand than I think you ever were to the things you threw away.

  So, Aaliyah, how the hell did you get yourself wrapped up into Colin’s dumb shit?

  Maybe you always were.

  Maybe, it’d eat up a decent amount of time to scribble in this little moleskin you found under the bed, tell the story of you to whoever ultimately finds your bullet-holed bones; of who you are.

  Tell them why you fucking matter.

  For the sake of your interest, it’d make the most sense to start with Colin.

  So, naturally, as everything else in my life is fucking bonkers currently, I’ll start with momma instead.

  THEY JUST WOULDN’T stop shooting at us.

  We wouldn’t stop shooting at us. We’d made our voices known in one way or another. We’d told them to strip away the guns, strip away everything, to make Biology II and Trig the only things that killed us on the daily. It’s as if they didn’t know how to stop.

  No, that’s dumb.

  They knew, because we fucking told them. We told them with our goddamned words. They made a few adjustments, bump stocks were stripped away, and it helped. It grew in its reach, stood up to a crawl at one point, stumbling over and knocking shit off the wall, but ultimately, we got complacent. Enough of the world thought eventually that we’d just get over it. We weren’t surprised, though, were we? We were the first generation to know what it felt like to be hunted and under a camera the whole time.