As good as Tiff looked in her tank top a while ago, I’m not sure if I’m in the mood. We’ve done this booty call thing about three times over the past month or so and while it’s been a nice distraction during my so-called recovery, the irony of it isn’t lost on me. Tiff hates what I represent and what I did that day. In turn, it angers me that she can’t see that the tweaker decided his fate. She argued early in our dating about the police and their use of deadly force. She believed, absurdly so, that officers should never use it. She said that shooting someone is always a choice and that too many cops choose to shoot. I argued that perps put officers into grave situations that compel them to respond with deadly force. She wouldn’t buy it. After a while, we agreed to disagree and the elephant in the room grew larger and larger until it began knocking things down.
A few days after we ended whatever we had, I got into the shooting. Two days later, she called. She said she’d been out of town, and then she asked if it was necessary to shoot the man. I started to snap the lid shut on my phone but her fast apology stopped me. “That was out of line, Sam,” she said. “I’m so sorry.” She sounded legit but who knows. “I just wanted to make sure that you were okay.” That was about it. It could have been worse, I guess.
Three weeks later she called again, to see how I was doing. After I lied that I was doing fine and she pretended to believe me, we had an animosity-free talk about how each of us was feeling about our failed relationship. When it looked as if we had exhausted the subject, she said quietly, as if feeling me out, “The sex was good. In fact, it was great.” I affected an official tone and concurred with her assessment, which made us both laugh. We talked another half hour about sex until I couldn’t stand it any longer and asked her how long it would take her to come over. She said ten minutes if she didn’t stop for traffic signals.
Three weeks earlier, I sent a guy to hell and three weeks later I had sex that nearly blew my head off. I even had to take an Excedrin after. “Where did that come from?” Tiff asked breathlessly, looking at me as if I were from outer space. I decided it was best not to mention that I had been thinking about the shooting the whole time.
So here we are again. I have no idea if this is good for me, or us, but for now my inner caveman says to go with the flow and I’m guessing Tiff’s inner cavewoman is thinking the same thing.
I listen to her doing whatever women do in the bathroom. I liked those sounds when we were together and she would stay over on weekends. Then it gave me a sense of togetherness and stability. Now the sounds make me feel uncomfortable and unsure about what the hell I’m doing.
Tiff walks into the room, my pale blue terrycloth robe cinched tight around her waist. Even in an oversized, bulky robe, there is no hiding those dangerous curves, scrumptious peaks, and ultra-hot valleys. That’s what I’m talking about.
“What are you lookin’ at?” she says with a grin, moving over to where I’m sitting. She stops by my knee, looking down at me.
“You know what I’m lookin’ at.”
“Yeah? You just a looker or are you a doer?”
The phone rings.
“It’s Kari,” she says, looking down at the ID screen.
“Nine at night?” I pick up the receiver. “Hi Kari.”
“Sam. You doing okay?” Kari is the shrink I’ve been seeing since the shooting. A tough woman who never wastes words.
“Doing pretty good.”
“Got a conflict at noon tomorrow. Let’s meet at one-thirty instead.”
“Yes, sure.”
“One-thirty it is. See you.”
“Good bye,” I say, wasting my breath since she’s already hung up. I turn toward Tiff. “Kari’s got a conflict and we’re changing the appointment to…”
She’s rummaging through her overnight bag on the end of the bed. The bathrobe has fallen open a little revealing all kinds of good things. I have no choice but to lunge for her like a shoot wrestler diving at an opening. No choice at all.
“Help! Police!” Tiff calls out, as she falls back onto the bed laughing.
“You’re in luck.” I say, pulling the robe from her shoulders. “I am the police.”
“In that case, “Heeeeeelp! I thought you were exhausted.”
“I’m going to feel better in a minute.”
“It’s going to last a whole minute? Oh lucky me.”
“How you been, Sam?”
“Peachy keen.”
“You going to start out with the shitty attitude again?”
“Nice shrink-talk, doc.”
Dr. Kari Stephens crosses her legs, sips from her coffee mug, on which there is an image of John Wayne and the words A man’s gotta have a creed to live by, and lifts her eyebrows. She’s a plain looking fifty-year-old Chinese woman, fit, gun-silver hair that’s cut a tad longer than a Marine’s, and wearing an expensive and impeccably tailored navy-blue suit. Her eyes watch me as if I were a field mouse and she a bird of prey. I’m dreading the big question she’s going to ask and that I have to answer.
I look out the window for a moment, not really seeing the Portland skyline, and exhale some of my resignation. I don’t like being here, plain and simple. I hate talking about my feelings and about the loony tunes that’s going on inside my skull. It helps a little that the mad doctor is tougher than a gunny sergeant; if she were all hugs and touchy feely this wouldn’t work at all.
“Sorry doc.”
“For acting like a prick?”
I sputter a short laugh. “Yeah, I guess.”
“It’s your word, Sam. You referred to yourself as one during your first visit. If it’s true, well, maybe you can’t help it.” Her eyes penetrate, though a small twinkle gives her away.
I snort again. She’s got a rep for not tolerating fools and big tough cops who act like spoiled children. “Okay, okay. Man, I can’t believe the PD hired a leatherneck to be our psychologist.”
She rotates her wedding band a couple of times, then smiles, but only faintly, a rarity from her. I’m thinking she’s married to an Ellen. Or, god forbid, a Rosie.
“You want Mother Teresa?”
I laugh. ”Well, maybe a little.”
She peers at me over her glasses as she swigs from her cup. “Uh-huh,” she says, though the tone is more like, “Buuuull shit.”
I chuckle, nodding. I liked her from my first appointment, though I hated the department mandate that forces all officers involved in shootings to see her. Few cops go without grumbling, though most admit later that the visit, sometimes multiple visits, helped get their heads back on straight. Taking a life, no matter how deserving the departed, shakes most to their core. Some cops lose a few nights sleep before they’re back resuming their normal lives. Others need about a month to feel right, and still others take several months, even years to find peace with what they’ve done. I’ve known three who never recovered.
“I’m still having the dreams except now it’s my face I’m… shooting.”
“It’s common to reverse the roles. That too shall pass. Remember, Sam, and you’ve heard me say this twenty damn times, everything you’re experiencing is a normal reaction to an abnormal event.”
I nod and look out the window. I know that, but knowing it doesn’t help much at night when I’m soaking my sheets in sweat.
“It will in time,” she says, as