Broken
By the Blintz
I know he’s watching me. I can feel his eyes boring into the back of
my skull like twin laser beams cutting through foam rubber. I look at the girl standing, laughing in
front of me and I feel a piece of me break.
I don’t trust my voice as I gently grab her arm and, ignoring her
protests, push her sleeve up above her elbow.
There I find the proof of her downfall – neat little track marks turning
her smooth flesh into a gory tattoo. I
realize that Amboy owns her and God knows how many more just like her, and
another piece of me breaks. I stammer
out something about how she should be flunking Latin and dating football
players, but my insides are twisted into hard little knots. Somehow, even my partner’s silent vigil
behind me cannot comfort me enough.
I know where she is, because I’ve
been there. If I were to raise my own
sleeve she would see for herself that, although the physical marks have faded
somewhat, I bear the same tattoo on my arm and on my soul. And I really want to tell her, but the words
won’t come. I still can’t bring myself
to talk about that chapter in my life with anyone but Starsky. It’s too painful, too fresh, and I know that
I’ll feel the same way years from now.
There’s a part of me that will never forgive myself for what happened,
even though he’s told me a million times that it wasn’t my fault. He insists that I was innocent, dominated
body and soul, a victim of a violent crime.
Victim…How I hate that word!
Time passes, and I think of her
constantly. I wish there was someway I
could tell her, let her know she’s not alone and I’ve been there before. It seems that we’ll be pulled off the case,
until she calls us from Amboy’s house, crying, scared, and alone. She’s not laughing anymore and I want to
kill someone. I can’t get to her fast
enough and it feels good to attack the guy who’s trying to kill her. Afterward, as I hold her, she rocks back and
forth, kneeling on the floor as her heart rips in half, and another piece of me
breaks. I wonder how long it will be
before I’m no longer so sensitive, so crushed when I see someone like her. I relinquish her to the paramedics who have
come to take care of her, but I don’t want to let her go. I don’t trust them to understand.
We finally have enough evidence to
arrest Amboy, and it gives me so much pleasure to watch him fall flat on his
face. Starsky comes up behind me and
asks if I’m okay. We both know he’s not
talking about my physical well-being.
But for now, that’s all I can answer for and I nod once to reassure him
that I’m not injured. I feel his hand
on my shoulder, but I’m not ready for that yet. I don’t feel like I deserve his comfort and support so I shrug it
off and head to the station to fill in the never-ending reports. I can still feel his eyes on me – truth is,
they haven’t left me since this whole thing started. I know he trusts me - that’ s not the issue. But I wonder if the memories are still as
devastating and disturbing for him as they are for me?
Later, I turn down his invitation
for a round at Huggy’s. I need to be
alone to sort out everything I’m feeling and I can’t stand to feel his eyes on
me anymore as I wonder what he’s thinking.
The darkness of my apartment is a relief, but it is a short-lived
one. I barely have time to shrug out of
my jacket and open a beer before I hear him knocking on the door. For just a minute I consider not answering
it, but then I hear his key in the lock and I know it’s pointless to protest. He’s come to talk to me whether I want to
hear it or not, so I might as well listen.
He crosses to the fridge and helps
himself to a beer before plopping down on the chair. For several moments we sit in silence, his eyes staring a hole
through the side of my head while I stubbornly refuse to turn to meet his gaze.
Finally, with a deep sigh, he breaks
the silence. “You didn’t have to tell her; she already knows.”
It still amazes me that he knows
exactly what I’m thinking. “I’m a
coward, Starsk. Maybe if I’d told her,
I could have helped her sooner. Maybe I
could have saved her some pain. Maybe
she wouldn’t have had to suffer for so long…”
My voice breaks as I stand up and walk over to the windows. The night is still, dark, and quiet, almost
as if it’s responding to my mood.
“I’m tellin’ ya, Hutch. She already knows.”
I can still feel his eyes boring a
hole through the side of my head. I’m
not quite sure what he’s trying to say, kind of unusual for the two of us. I didn’t tell her, and I know he didn’t tell her; he wouldn’t
betray me that way. I think for a
moment about what he just said and finally I have to ask. “How could she, Starsk? How could she know that I was an…addict?” Even after all this time, that word still
feels like poison on my tongue. “How
could she know that I know what it feels like to be willing to trade your soul
for just one more hit? How could she
know that I’ve been there, that I begged and pleaded and…”
“Stop it.” His voice is quiet when he interrupts my tirade, even though I
was nearly shouting. I stop, but I have
to turn my back to him as I try to regain some control. I know he can hear the anger and
self-loathing in my voice, and I know it hurts him almost as much as it does
me, but I can’t stop myself. He gives
me a few minutes to pull it together, then he breaks the silence once again.
“Hutch, why do you think she trusts
you? What made her turn to you in the
first place? When the two of you first
met, there was an instant bond there and she’s not the only one. What draws these people to you?”
I’m not surprised to feel his hand
on my shoulder, only this time I don’t try to brush him off. I turn around and finally, for what feels
like the first time in days, I actually meet his eyes. I think I know where he’s headed now, but I
don’t know if I’m ready to hear it. I
let him continue.
“Hutch,” he says, eyes bright in the
near darkness. “You don’t ever have to
say the words. Yes, you’ve been
there. And yes, you know how she
feels. But you don’t have to tell
her. Even though she doesn’t know why,
she still trusts you and finds something in you that she latches on to. She doesn’t know what that is, and she
doesn’t need to know. It’s enough that
she feels it here.” He taps his fist
lightly over his heart.
I take one more look into his
guileless blue eyes and once again I have to turn away. At some level, I know he’s right, but there
are things inside me that even he doesn’t know. But I know I’m safe here with him. So I close my eyes and take a deep breath. “She’s going to testify against Amboy, probably
put him behind bars for the rest of his life.
But what did I do, Starsk? I
didn’t even tell anyone. Here I am, supposed to be a cop, and when it
happened to me, I ran and hid behind my partner and did nothing!” My voice is
getting louder again but I can’t seem to stop myself. “Yeah, Forrest went to prison, but not for what he did to
me. And why? Because I couldn’t bring myself to let anyone know. I was too ashamed. And here’s this seventeen year old kid doing what I should have
done but didn’t have to guts to do.” My
teeth are clenched together in anger and I’d like nothing more than to run from
the room screaming.
But I can’t run away from myself.
I feel his hand on my arm and he
urges me to look at him. He speaks very
slowly and deliberately, studying my face to make sure I understand what he’s
trying to say. “You – did – what – you
– had – to – do. Period. You had to survive, not only as a person,
but as a cop, and you took the only option you had. Nothin’ more, nothin’ less.
And in my book, that doesn’t make you any less of a man. It means you’re strong enough to do what you
had to do, and man enough to own up to it.
You got that?”
He has both hands on my arms as our
eyes meet. I look closely, searching
for any trace of recrimination or loathing, but all I find is acceptance and
strength. Time stands still for the
briefest of seconds, but in that time I understand exactly what he’s been
trying to tell me. Finally, the knot in
my chest loosens imperceptibly and I can breathe again. It’s not a deep breath, but it’s cleansing
all the same.
“Yeah,” I answer softly. “I got it.”
My head falls to his shoulder and he automatically releases one of my
arms to rub my back in slow, soothing circles.
My mind flashes back to a similar scene so long ago in a tiny upstairs
room and once again I know he’s saved me.
Maybe not from an addiction I never asked for, but from myself.
And I feel another piece of me break
as the healing begins.
The Blintz
08/31/02