The Hole

  I always wanted to be a cop. Call it a hero complex, but I wanted to help people, keep them safe. I wanted to be the person that when you were scared, in trouble, desperate, and you saw me, you’d feel safe. Like everything is going to be okay. That’s why I studied criminal justice. That’s why I started bouncing and working security at bars, venues, and house parties in college.

I started pretty mild, a college house party in a suburb, a venue in a nice part of town. As I gained experience, I started looking for jobs in progressively worse areas. It seemed like a better experience for me, given what I wanted to do. I thought that I should be exposed to bad situations, so that I would know how to handle the violence, the drugs, the crazy, desperate people. I found that I was able to deal with all of those things. I was the type of person who would run to the danger to try and help people. I showed patience and empathy with all those people I had to deal with. I could keep my head when the situation got bad. I could stand my ground when I needed to.

Despite all of those things I exposed myself too, I was never all that bothered by it. I guess I just expected all of it. I would see the same faces, doing the same things, and getting in the same trouble time after time. If they stayed in that life, they would all end up in one of three places. In the hospital, behind bars, or underground. Eventually, I didn’t see it as any different from 2+2=4. I never looked down on them. I wished the best for them, and sometimes I would see people start to get better. But I saw at least as many get worse.

But I never got hired. Departments weren’t hiring when I was able to apply, and as you get older your priorities change. I got a good job, got married, and started to talk about making a family. We even bought a house. It wasn’t on the good side of town, but it was far from the bad side. Stability is a hell of a drug. 

One day, I was working in our backyard. Through my headphones I could just barely hear bang…bang bang bang. At first I told myself that it was just a car backfiring, a stereo, maybe some kids setting off firecrackers in their driveway. But then I said to myself, “No. You know what gunshots sound like.” 

I rushed into my house and called for my wife. She came out of the back with the dog, and she had no idea that there had been gunshots. I grabbed my own gun, told her what I heard and to stay inside. I told her that if she didn’t hear from me in 15 minutes, to call the cops, and I rushed out the door.

She would later tell me that she kicked herself for not stopping me after I left. But then she told herself, “That’s who he is. In his heart, my husband is a cop.”

When I got outside, I took deep breaths. I wanted my heart to slow down so it wouldn’t drown out any noise I heard, that might point me where to go. I took in all the noise I could. From behind the row of houses across the street from my own, I heard a woman shout, “Mom? MOM?!” I immediately ran to the intersection.

When I got to the intersection I slowed down. Running straight into a situation like that was a good way to get myself killed, and I’m no good to anyone dead. I walked around the last house and headed up the street, pulling my gun out. At first, I didn’t see anything unusual. As I kept looking, I noticed a car parked in front of a house with its passenger door wide open. Walking towards it I took in all the information I could, from sounds, to smells, to sights. I could hear a woman yelling, “I warned her. I warned her.” When I got halfway to the house, I saw the first of the bodies.

When I got to the house, I saw two bodies lying face down on the front lawn. Both females. At first I thought it was a little girl and a teenager, but I would eventually find out that it was one little girl and her mother. I looked at the house. There was a middle-aged man on his back, maybe 20 feet from the house. Blood covered his face. A few feet in the direction he would have been facing, was a little boy. He was on his back, completely still and covered in blood. Slumped down on her knees behind her walker, adjacent to the man, was an old woman. She was still yelling, “I warned her. I warned her.” Her daughter stood over her, arms wrapped around her mom trying to console her. A few feet from the front door, an old man sat with his back against the wall of the garage. He just kept slowly shaking his head.

I would later find out that the man’s estranged girlfriend, and mother of their two children, had come to the house to get the kids. Some kind of dispute happened between her and the grandmother, and she began to hit the grandmother. I guess she knew her son was unstable, and that’s what she was warning her about. The son had come outside, shot her, both of their children, and then turned the gun on himself. Right there in front of his mother.

The part that sticks with me is the little girl. I saw the back of her head where she had been shot. The way she was laying, the hole had to have been where she was shot. Dried blood lined the back of the head from the hole, and brain matter had caked around the edge of it. The hole itself was just black. The hole looked so damn big. Bigger than any hole a normal pistol caliber would make. I felt like the hole was getting bigger. I had that feeling you get when you stand too close to a ledge and feel like you’re going to fall off. The hole started to swallow me.

I don’t know how long I stared at it, but I tore my gaze away from the hole when I heard sirens. Another neighbor had walked up. He had seen the whole thing from his kitchen and told the cop as much when he got there. He told me I could go since I didn’t see what happened.

I started to cry on my way back home. When I walked into the house, I pulled my wife in close, and told her we were safe. I explained what happened and told her I needed to make a phone call. She gave me some space even though the only thing she wanted to do was hold me. I called an old friend of mine. He’s a firefighter and his wife is an EMT, so they understood what I was going through. I’m lucky to have a friend to help me through that. The last thing he said to me was, “Just remember. That wasn’t your call.” Which means that I wasn't the one called in to handle that situation. It wasn’t my responsibility to help them. I hadn’t failed anyone. 

After the call, my wife held me while we called her parents and mine. I didn’t want either one of them to find this out second hand and get worried about us. She explained how she had wanted to stop me. She told me she loved me. I know she was worried about how it would affect me. She was worried about it keeping me up at night or changing my emotions. It never really did though.

This isn’t a memory that has ever kept me up at night. As far as I can tell my emotions or thoughts didn’t change because of it. I believe it was because I immediately talked to someone who understood, had experience with it, and I trusted. It’s been two and a half years now. It still comes to mind every now and then, and I still feel that hole swallow me a bit. But I know, it wasn’t my call.