Split Black /#Wattys 2021

Chapter Thirty-one

John put a hand in his pocket, fumbling for the key to Lizzie's car on his key ring. He stumbled back through the yard to her Honda, unlocked it, and got in. Put it in gear, pulled into traffic. He didn't even know where he was driving. He felt like he was floating, disembodied, miles above the Honda with scratches and scorched places in its sunny yellow paint, miles above Cary Street and the scorched grass, his ruined car on the way to the impound yard, his ruined case, and his girlfriend in the house snorting coke.

He found himself in the parking lot at the foot of the bridge that led to Belle Isle. A few cars lingered in the lot. John drove to the very top of the lot, to the gravel lane up the hill where no one was supposed to park. He killed the engine and rolled the windows down. Fuck 112 patrol if they rolled up and bitched. He was a cop. Or at least, he was supposed to be one.

The past three years, the looks Savonn, Solly, and Arlene used to give him when he was new on the squad and they didn't think he saw, his great stats this year off all easy cases, all came back like slaps in the face. Here was Mike, struggling with PTSD or some damn thing and probably the unluckiest year a rookie ever had on the A squad, terrified of being transferred out.

Probably it should be John. Forget Silvano this morning, forget about Pride; how could he not know Lizzie was using? Was he really that stupid?

He saw his phone in his hand. His thumb moved across the digits.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Ma," John said. "It's Johnny."

His mother said, "Johnny, what's the matter?"

John told her as much of the story as he could. He'd already been shot and almost died; he didn't think she needed to know just now that someone had blown up his uncle's cherished, gleaming old 442 almost with him in the front seat. But he told her about Lizzie's lazy summer, about how she'd seemed to be doing much better, how she'd gone to the commercial casting and the movie audition and knocked them all dead, and now here she was coking up when she didn't think he was around. He knew everybody in the family would know the news by the end of tomorrow, but it didn't matter.

"Oh, my God," Ma said. "That's awful. What a terrible thing to come home to, Johnny. I'm so sorry."

All the angry thoughts he'd had about his mother since The Letter Incident suddenly seemed mean. He'd written a nasty letter a time or two himself, mostly to her. The only difference was, she'd had a moment of weakness and actually sent hers.

"I never would have pegged Lizzie for a doper," Ma said. "She seemed like such a wholesome girl. A little ditsy, but so nice. I don't know." John could see her slowly shaking her head on the other end of the line.

"I never would have either, and I'm a police officer," John sighed. "Sometimes I don't think I'm a very good one. How can you go out with a cokehead for a year and a half and not have a clue?"

"Johnny, don't talk like that," said his mother. "You're a smart guy. You were valedictorian and you know they don't let dummies into Duke University on scholarship, even if they can play basketball. Come on, remember when you were on patrol and you found that mugger hiding in the old warehouse? Those other patrolmen had cleared it and you were the only one who thought to go back through it? You aren't stupid. And I'm not just saying that because I'm your mother."

John listened. An old familiar guilt crept over him. Ma obviously wasn't ashamed of him or harboring all these unkind thoughts about him on the sly. But he had been angry and ashamed of her. Avoiding her, even.