The Shooting (31 page)

Sleeps that night again with Joseph's blanket pulled snug over his body, mouth agape, dreaming of his father, the grocery store parking lot, Lee's eye oozing and swollen, and the awful horror in the faces of the people passing by them, his father sweating and drunk, the gun on his hip. A kind, concerned woman coming up to them in the parking lot,
Sir, his eye is in trouble, you need to take him to a hospital,
and his father saying to her,
You need to mind your own business. A
truck backing out, Lee on the pavement, back tire crushing Lee's leg. His father pulling Lee to his feet, both of which are mangled.
Apologize to him, Lee. Apologize to me.
His beery sardine breath on Lee's face as he leans in with bushy gray-black beard.
Your pets are dead.
He wakes up soaked.

That day he waits in line for the phones to call him again, but when he gets there and lifts the receiver and begins to dial, he just hangs up and calls no one. He goes to the yard where he stands in the sun for longer, closer to the track, swinging his arms a few more times than yesterday. He looks down at his belly, the fat of his perspiring throat squeezing sideways on either side of his chin, pressing down like a finger on a toothpaste tube. Puts his hands on his ample lard, jiggles it. Those little goddamn potatoes.

Maybe he is not who he believes he is and never has been. Maybe his father too. Is it possible?

Meets with Potter. —How's my son?

—He's fine, I checked in on him yesterday, she's taking great care of him.

—He's safe?

—He's safe. And if you're not indicted by tomorrow, they have to let you out. For now. I can't believe they haven't indicted you yet, to be honest. I don't know what's taking so long, it makes me think La Cuzio's struggling. I'm sensing weakness. I'm smelling blood. You never know with a grand jury. You played it well with the detectives, you gave a beautiful statement. I wish I could have been there when La Cuzio read it and saw he has no choice but to forget the dead kid.
I feared for my life, he said he had a gun, I rendered aid.
No witnesses to contradict it. There's no way he'll try and take that to trial—he won't risk the embarrassment of an acquittal. No, he won't touch the shooting. You'll get off on that. All he can do is go after you on the gun. If the gun goes to trial, it's a slam dunk conviction and he looks good, the city looks good, the protestors lose their steam. Which La Cuzio needs. They've been relentless. Jenny Sanders has them all stirred up, they've been clogging up the streets, the trains, embarrassing everybody, bringing the media everywhere, being up everybody's ass, cops are roughing them up, looking like the Red Army, and it all just stirs up the other side and
they
start protesting and doing the same thing. It's a mess out there. A spectacle. La Cuzio convicts you on the gun and all that goes away. So that's his strategy. Well, here's what I'm gonna do. It's a long shot, to put it mildly, but we have nothing to lose and it's our only option, so why not take it: I'm going to put you in front of the grand jury tomorrow, and I want you to tell them your reasons for having that gun, make them think long and hard about locking up a citizen for exercising his constitutional rights, for protecting his family. You never know who you'll get on a grand jury, I've seen surprising things happen. Three-fourths of your jurors see it your way, then technically—and I stress technically, because this really has almost zero chance of working in your favor—they could decide not to indict on the gun. And if that happens, you walk. For now. It won't be over. You won't be clear. La Cuzio can still take you to trial if he wants—and he will—but without the grand jury
it will take a bit longer and be a bit more difficult for him. But it will buy you time. It will get you out for the time being. So if you have somewhere you want to go, Potter says meaningfully, —you would have enough time to go there. For a vacation. Understand?

Lee says, —You're saying leave my country?
My
country? Be a damned fugitive?

Potter says, —No, I can't advise that. But if we're talking theoreticals? Potter shrugs. —People do things, they do what they have to do. And right now, just know that beating this grand jury is what you have to do. So for your sake, I hope you can give a good speech.

Tomorrow. He lies awake all night counting down the minutes, thinking about the grand jury, his father. Leaving the country. Where could he go? Venezuela? Russia? North Korea? It makes him ill to think about: in prison in a free country, or out free in some prison country? He does not want to tell them about his reasons for having the gun. Because suddenly he is thinking,
They were the wrong reasons attached to the wrong values. The values themselves never existed. The country they were supposed to have come from never did either.
And the only significant thing he has ever done in his life is murder a boy. That is not true—his son is significant. So he has taken one boy and given another. His life is a zero sum. All he has done and all he has been adds up to nothing. He was tested and he panicked, he fucked up. That is the truth. Is that what he will tell them?

In the silence that comes after that question a small voice speaks. He can barely hear it. He has to listen very hard, at first, but then he does not have to listen hard at all.
One thing about me, pardner?
it says,
I'm as real as they come.

And he knows what he will say.

They bring him out to the bus. Take him across the bridge, through Queens, down the length of Manhattan, through his neighborhood—they pass his building, European tourists are taking photos of themselves in front of it—and to the courthouse. This time it is calm. No media or protestors or police. No signs calling Lee a racist or a murderer, no one holding up pictures of the kid. No
her.

—Where is everybody? he asks Potter.

—They took over Union Square and Bryant Park today. Grand juries are secret, they don't know you're here.

They sit on a bench in the hallway outside the grand jury room waiting to be called inside.

—They're in there talking about me?

—Yes, they are.

—How long's it been going on?

—Four days. And now here you are. The headline act.

They call him in. He goes alone. His attorney has to stay outside. It is silent. There are a bunch of people who must be the jurors and a court stenographer and armed bailiffs and a bald-headed guy in a suit who must be La Cuzio. And that's all—no one else. No judge or anything. La Cuzio seems to be in charge. It feels somber and pious in here, like church. The jury sits in cushy theater-type chairs staring at him, the man La Cuzio has been telling them about, this callous, evil, murderous, racist demon. He sits in the chair on the witness stand at the front of the room, and one of the members of the jury, a woman in her fifties, swears him in.
—Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth...
He nods somberly and says he does.

He notes the holstered pistols of the bailiffs. That one there must be a Glock 19, modified with a twelve-pound trigger pull the way most New York City law enforcement service weapons are. There are also a Smith & Wesson 5946, a Sig Sauer P226, and another Smith & Wesson, judging from the shape of the grips. He can feel each gun in his hand, its weight, its texture, the thickness of the polymer. He can feel each nine-millimeter hollow-tip round between his fingertips as he shoves one after another into the clip. Eight, nine, ten... He can feel each gun kicking tight and hard in his hands as he fires, like choking a coyote; he can feel the sound of the shots split his ears, see the casings flip end over end in the corner of his vision up toward his shoulder, some landing warmly on his wrist. He can smell the gunpowder. Can see the iron sights, his target blurred beyond them. He can enjoy the silence that falls when the gun stops firing because you have shot all there is to shoot.

La Cuzio comes up to him and, using his hand to cover the little microphone in front of Lee, he mutters, —I'm gonna enjoy this.

He turns and wades back out among the jurors.

—Mr. Fisher, welcome.

He waits for Lee to reply. Lee leans into the microphone and says loudly, —Thank you. The sound booms out the speakers and the jurors all flinch, hands going to their ears.

—Not so loud, Mr. Fisher.

—Sorry, Lee says.

—Just try calming down. Take a breath. Are you nervous? You want a glass of water?

—No, thank you.

—Sure you do. La Cuzio approaches him, picking up a pitcher of water and a plastic cup from a table on the way. He stands in front of Lee and pours the water into the cup all the way, until it brims over. Then he hands it to Lee and says, —There you go. Drink it.

—I don't want it.

—I can hear your mouth sticking together, it's so dry. You must be very nervous.

—I'm sick. I got sick in jail. It's horrible there. I got very sick. As if on cue, he sneezes.

—Suit yourself. La Cuzio reaches out and takes the cup back from Lee and returns with it and the pitcher to the table. He sets both down and says, —Mr. Fisher, you shot Clayton Kabede, correct?

—Yes, unfortunately I did and I feel terrible about it and wish to God I hadn't had to.

—What did you use to shoot him?

Lee hesitates. —Is that a real question?

La Cuzio raises his eyebrows, indicating it is indeed.

—I used a gun.

—Where'd you get it?

—I kind of inherited it. It's kind of something I inherited.

—In your statement to detectives you say it was a decoration. Is that correct? Do you remember saying that?

—I don't remember much from that night, to be honest. It was too horrible.

—Do you keep all your home decor loaded and oiled and capable of destroying human beings?

—No.

—You did not own a decoration, you owned a firearm, correct?

—I owned a firearm, yes, sir. I never intended to use it.

La Cuzio tells the grand jury, —At trial, the court will hear testimony from forensic firearms experts proving that Mr. Fisher's so-called decorative family heirloom was in fact fired very often, even as recently as three days before the shooting. The illegally owned gun was a fully functional, deadly weapon kept for one purpose and that was
shooting.
Mr. Fisher, did you have a license for your gun?

—The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution says nothing about a license.

—Yes or no, please.

—I applied for one. They took my two-hundred-dollar fee and rejected my application without even considering it. That's how the process works in New York. It ain't nothing but a charade.

—Was denied a license,
La Cuzio translates for the grand jury, nodding as though mentally checking some box. He turns to them. —I remind you that New York City law requires a license for a gun. Owning a functioning firearm without a license—even if it does just look good on your bookshelf—is a felony crime. A
felony crime.
And Mr. Fisher has just told you he did not have a license. And, Mr. Fisher, when your application was rejected you decided you would just go ahead and have a gun anyway because laws don't apply to guys like you, right?

—Not at all, Lee says. Then he says, —What kind of guy's that?

La Cuzio does not tell him. It feels like the grand jury knows what he means. La Cuzio says, —You feel you are above the law, don't you?

—No, I do not, Lee says, speaking directly to the jury now. —New York decided
it
was above the United States Constitution. They make you have a license but they have no intention of ever giving you one. Unless you're a cop. So it's an illegal gun ban. A violation of our basic rights. We have rights we are born with, and one of them
is the right to self-defense. But somewhere along the line, politicians like this one here decided they could violate those rights and throw us in jail if we take issue with it. And if you ask me, that ain't right. That ain't right. La Cuzio starts to say something but Lee interrupts him. —Do
you
have a gun?

—Please simply answer my questions, Mr. Fisher.

—You do, don't you? La Cuzio protests but Lee talks over him, —He does. I know he does. Know why? He used to be a cop. Know how I know that? I read the news, I pay attention. I read between the lines. So he gets to throw other guys in jail for doing the same thing he does? See, that's not fair to me. The same cops we read about in the news every day killing unarmed people without justification and without consequence, they get the guns and the rest of us don't? Cops get to protect their families but the rest of us don't? Normal, everyday people: our children aren't as important as cops' children? Is my son's life less important than Mr. La Cuzio's kids? That just don't seem right to me. It don't seem right.

La Cuzio is staring down at papers in his hands as he says, —You think you're a normal, everyday person, huh?

—That's right. Just a normal kind of guy.

—How many homes do you own?

—Well, eight. No, nine, technically.

—He doesn't even know, ladies and gentlemen. He's such a normal guy he doesn't even know. I wish I had inherited so much money I could lose track of how many homes I own. Maybe then I could do whatever I wanted too, without consequence. Mr. Fisher, how much did you inherit? Before Lee can even answer, La Cuzio says, —Doesn't even know that either.

La Cuzio is visibly disgusted with Lee. It's so personal. Lee is wondering if they somehow know each other. La Cuzio puts his hand to his eyes and rubs his forehead. The people in the jury look very uncomfortable. One woman keeps looking at the door. La Cuzio points to Lee without looking at him. —Born rich, white, and male. Doesn't get more privileged than that, does it? He grew up in a time of peace and economic stability. He fought in no wars, he lived through no political upheaval, he suffered no famine, he faced none
of the dangers faced by eighty percent of the world. Clean water. Access to education. Top-notch doctors. Medicine. He had every privilege, every advantage; he was given every benefit of the doubt. He had wealth. He had property. It still wasn't enough for him. He wanted more. He wanted to feel
important.
And
heroic.
He felt it was part of his entitlement to feel like a soldier without putting his life on the line for his country. To feel like a cop without putting his life on the line for his city. To
feel
tough without actually
being
tough. La Cuzio looks over at the jury. —At trial, the court will hear testimony that Mr. Fisher is known in his community as a reclusive racist, a cold, paranoid person who wants nothing to do with his neighbors.