Far West Chapter Five

VULTURES

Rachel Cox held her yellow legal pad of notes and the wireless microphone between her thighs as she instructed her cameraman, Ernie.  “Try to get a shot of the Tower without the police lights in it.  I want something that looks exclusive.  Something that gets some attention.”

            “The cops won’t be too open to letting us leave this area.  What do you suggest we do?  If you want to get shot or go to jail, feel free Rachel.” 

            “You get paid for getting the shot.  Not for bitching about my safety.  Don’t pussy out on me, Ernie.”

            Ernie did not appreciate her attitude, which was the prevailing attitude of many female reporters towards their male camera operators, whom they belittled with the viciousness of countless centuries of pent-up rage.  It was understandable, but for Ernie, it was unnecessary. 

            “If you get shot between the eyes, you’d never know it.”

            “I suppose not.  Well we’re the only ones here.  Might as well cash in on the opportunity before our rival channels or the big boys get here down from Boston,” she paused and returned with an aside.  “Unless some white girl fell down a well or got herself kidnapped again.”

            “This is the Vale.  What the fuck do they care even if it were a white-napping.”

            “They don’t but I’m from this city.  I care.”

            “And that’s who matters?”

            “To me it still does—so shut it, Ernie.  Maybe CNN will show-up if they think this Shooter’s a member of an Al-Qaeda terrorist cell.  I really hope that they do, but I doubt they could find here on a map with or without Google maps.” 

            “Just like Oklahoma City.  Disgruntled American soldiers could never attack their own country.  Never ever.  If a journalist ever read into history or had a memory that lasts longer than a fish these things would not come as a catastrophe.”  Ernie was becoming overly disgusted with their conversation as it sank deeper into cynicism and derision of their profession.

            “Why are you a cameraman, if you’re so well read and smart, huh?”

            “Because I get to lug around a hundred pounds of camera equipment for appreciative assignment reporters, why else?”  Ernie coughed clearing his throat as he began to guffaw loudly at his own remark.

            “Enough of this tripe, you are beginning to sound like my ex.”

             Rachel crept along the black paint lacquered cast iron piked fence that enclosed the grounds of the mothballed public library.  Ernie followed behind her through the pickets and crudely placed cement jersey barriers into the exposed field of fire in tandem. 

It had grown dark long before the police turned on the intensity rich halogen bulbs of their searchlights.  The police were preoccupied with the Shooter and as a result no one had seen the WQNP employees running across the street. 

            The two crossed Taconic Street (where it veered away from the Green to run parallel to the river and the old Castle cemetery) to the mothballed brick commuter rail station.  They ran close to the ground hidden from view of the Police and the festering presence of gawkers and rubberneckers.  They came to an abrupt stop at the old service entrance to the Patriot newspaper, which led into a large open space and the stairwell that led directly up to the pulpit of the tower. 

            “Are we rolling, Ernie?”

            “Yeah, you want to go now?  This shit weighs a fucking ton.”

            “The police can’t see us from here can they?”

            “If I turn on the camera light, it’ll be blinded out by their searchlights.  We can go whenever you’d like.”

            “This is a good as anywhere else.”

            Rachel said while pulling out her cellular phone from the rear pocket of her unused blue jeans.  Ernie set up for her next report back to the New Haven studio.  The process took less than three seconds and it could not have been any slower for Rachel’s exponentially growing impatience with modern technology and its signature gray metal communication towers that blighted the landscape, as was evident along the southern approaches of the state highway into the Vale.   

            Peter Schneider was eager to air her testimony based on the kind of journalism that won Pulitzer Prizes and started wars.  Live to the viewers of Connecticut, Rachel spoke and they listened attentively as if she were a prophetess.  Ambitions of moving up the journalist ladder like her rival, Alison, flickered across Rachel’s eyes.  She became lost in her own reverie and was unable to brace for the sudden jarring interruption of her status report. 

            One by one, the Shooter shot out the searchlights, reloading his bolt action rifle for each volley.  She fell to the ground and lay beside Ernie, who remained filming the scene, whispering into the microphone.  In a matter of minutes, the Shooter had knocked out the ten lights at a distance of three hundred yards, two hundred and fifty something feet in the air from a forty-five degree angle. 

            The initial feelings of being impressed by the Shooter’s accuracy and rate of fire were replaced by anger and more desperate remarks.  The Police had faithfully followed the hostage negotiation and breach playbook to the letter.  The senior officers, such as Major Templeman and Commander Jaskilka, could not wait for the arrival of their hero and had decided that it was better to act now rather than later.    

            This prompted the Police to call in the Fire Brigade’s helicopter waiting on the rooftop landing pad of the Catholic hospital towards the massive shopping mall alongside the red rock mountains heading easterly towards the Connecticut Valley.  Before takeoff, Police sharpshooters filed in to the Sikorsky transport chopper with their array of shotguns and high-powered rifles.  They were clothed in the gray uniforms of the Fire Brigade in a poorly devised subterfuge designed to surprise the Shooter. 

The helicopter with its doors left wide-open rose from the rooftop pad of Saint George Hospital.  Its flight path flanked the isolated Tower to the northwest, careful to make a few circles for reconnaissance before their final approach began.  The pilot flew closer in with each pass, encouraged by the lack of a response from the Shooter.  The helicopter was near enough for those aboard to notice the finely detailed moulding of the Tower, the illuminated flourishments of unexpected colours, the salusian tiles, intricately carved stone gargoyles, and purple slates lodged into the mortar of the brickwork.  It was a monumental feat of art and engineering that was worthy of its royal namesake and the Vale of that past forgotten century when she reigned over all under the sun.

            Ernie turned off the camera, unable to film in the blackness, and helped Rachel to her feet.  She wiped the dirt and grit from her pants and out of her face.  Rachel lit a cigarette with a wood match that she flicked ablaze with her thumb and let out a thick puff of smoke. 

            “We have to get up there, before the police get any angrier and just blow up the damned Tower.” 

            Rachel walked towards the loading dock and found the access door to the tower.  She ripped back open the door with a crowbar.  The door slammed hard against the dusty hallowed out interior.  The noise rattled loudly as it reverberated up the many darkened flights of stairs.  Ernie’s jaw dropped when he saw the vertical distance before him to climb up to the waiting Shooter, reigning over the city as the god of thunder of lightning from the Tower, the great throne of the Vale rising triumphantly from its heart. 

            “Well, Ernie, I won’t wait for you.  Let’s go.”  Rachel motioned forward with her arms as she raised her eyebrows a la John Belushi and led the way.

           

“James Taylor,” answered the Scotsman, who had correctly identified the artist of the song on the radio within seconds of hearing the first few bars. 

            The Highway was clear.  The convoy of police and federal agents drove slowly in tandem down the ten percent grade switchback to the tunnel down towards Old Cranbury.

            “Fuck James Taylor!  He ruined the national anthem at the last World Series.”  Pizarro stammered as just to spite his partner. 

            Detective Sergeant Audie Bezzeg reclined in the rear seats of the standard issue nondescript police car.  He stared out the window at the shadowy outlines of the rocky terrain as it passed him by.  He could name all of the earthen landmarks with their proper elevations in the range of five hundred to twenty-three hundred feet, among the highest in Connecticut and complete unknowns to those without such an idiot savant’s memory of geographical information.               

            The conversation of James Taylor died.  Swarbrick droned on about the nuisance of the FBI, aimed to propel his former boss into divorce.  Detective Swarbrick had often suggested that Audie should marry his eldest daughter, Kelly, who worked in Glasgow as a hospital administrator.  This proposal was summarily rejected every time it was asked. 

            Pizarro tried to ignore him but every few moments he had to tell him off or try to turn on the radio’s volume high above the CB still present in the unmarked police car.  Bezzeg heard nothing but the harsh jarring of the car rolling southbound faster than necessary.

            Bezzeg disregarded them both.  His mind was clear.  I have jail waiting.  No longer far away and nothing can change my fate.  Maggie’ll miss me, but she’ll trudge on as long as there’s a challenge to be met.  She triumphed over all her adversities.  She won the battles when they mattered. 

            The cops settled on Jackson Browne. 

            The detectives of the County Civil Services Internal Affairs Department, aka Vulture Squad, had been hand selected by former Lieutenant Bezzeg, before he was demoted and sacked for a myriad of petty crimes and his use of unnecessary violence in their less than subtle investigations.  Starting with his time in Britain as a postgraduate criminology student, he began to recruit a few classmates who were willing to abandon time in the Metropolitan Police of London and other constabularies for service in the Cranbury Vale.  Resettlement in the Vale drew little attention and few takers, but enough recruits to form a squad. 

            The strange dynamic of his chosen twelve was that only two current officers, Pizarro and Bezzeg, had been born in the Vale.  The detail, at first, had tremendous success working operations within the Public Works, Fire Brigade, Parks Rangers, Cranbury Water (Reservoirs), the courts, the Mayor’s Office and the Police and Sheriffs until the last general election when the people voted to eradicate the County polices. 

            It was a Tuesday so the radio played a second Jackson Browne song, the Pretender.  The following song was the Oasis song Wonderwall.  Swarbrick gasped loudly above the acoustic guitar streaming out of the speakers and immediately turned off the radio.  The cops drew a breath of relief in unison. 

“Ma sis thinks Supertramp is better.  Hey Beg, ‘member that Irish terrorist—mass killer we had a few years go?” 

Swarbrick turned around in his seat to address Audie.

            “Yeah, called himself, The Poet.  Shot his victims in the liver to watch them bleed to death.  Special Branch thought he was in the INLA.  It was a mess when it ended.  Just a run of the mill murderer like the rest of them.”  Audie replied somberly.

            Swarbrick had not recognized the subtle allusions that his friend had given to drop the subject and continued unabated.  “Even with the references to John Donne and the bad plays that no one outside of the West-End has ever seen or heard about?”

            Initially, Audie had pretended not to hear him, but he responded nonetheless to his waiting mentor.  “Especially because of the John Donne references.  Just because he had read 17th century poetry did not get him off with the judge or that jury.  It’s a goddamn shame that he committed those murders in Britain and got life, instead of being hanged or shot out of a cannon into a landfill full of used condoms and syringes the way we do it here.”

            The car left behind the cavernous shadows of the great Taconic forests as overhanging streetlights proliferated along the roadside.  Audie looked deep into the catacombs of his memory as the faded light rested on his face and promptly retrieved an atrociously bad poem he knew from the past: 

Violet liver blood, 
Clouds in the sun. 
Nowhere but here.
Death be Proud.  -The Poet

FAR WEST Chapter Four

LONELY NATION

 The penultimate exit from the state highway to nowhere, also known as Torrington, came within sight of Lonely Nation Falls in the Wycliffe Forest and the towering nearly vertical mountains that enclosed the Vale into its own universe far from the outside influences of the modern world. 

            This geographical feature known as the Cranbury Vale had been created in the last ice age in the glacial conglomerate of igneous and metamorphic rock and earth.  The hollow shaped valley had been carved out by the retreating rocks of the long gone glaciers.  This rather unique, often too cold, too polluted, and too wet environment of the Cranbury did play a part in the Tanter’s strong belief that this Vale was the same England of the storybook Masterpiece Theatre and Thomas Hardy.  Despite their belief, it had been quipped by a great many on this side and the other side of the pond that Cranbury Vale was a cruel joke perpetuated by God on the losers of the English Civil War.  Their descendents were chosen by their poor circumstance and complete lack of piety to settle and die here.

            “No.  Scotland does not smell like sheep’s intestines.  That’s an old wive’s tale.”  Swarbrick said as he downed the last few ounces from his flask, licking the remnant drops from his mouth.  He had been drinking since noon.

            “Who’s wife, yours?”

            “Shut the fuck up.”

            Swarbrick’s face was red.  He let himself cool out thinking about his first ex-wife.  Phillippa, the Goddamn Wife of Bath, had like five husbands aside from me.  If your looks stay long enough you can have as many lovers as you like.  But you will still die alone.  Not a big deal, I have had plenty of snatch as it is.

            The two detectives, parked in the anterior parking lot of the resplendent cathedral, sat in their Crown Vic watching the FBI agents and US Marshals walking haphazardly around the perimeter of the house and down the hard pack dirt road.  The shadow of the great stone cathedral’s steeple covered over the detectives shrouding them from the Feds. 

            Across the dimmed street cast in a somber yellow Sergeant Bezzeg and his wife waited behind the tightly knit security detail of Federal agents.  Bezzeg was thoroughly bored out of his mind in the breaks between his many trials and testimonials without resolution.  The conclusion, without doubt, was going to be conviction followed by sentencing, prison, death, divorce. Yes, death before divorce.  When one marries a Mormon; it is forever despite what occurs in this life.  But, after that . . .  

            Pizarro said, “So what do we do, go to the front door and ask if Beg can come out and play?” 

            “What else do you suggest we do?  We have to bring the Sergeant to the Tower.  I dinnah know what the problem is.  I’ll do it if you don’t want to, that’ll be a bitch for your machismo, miracon.” Swarbrick’s volume increased for the final clause.

            “Haggis—shut your fucking trap,” Pizarro barked angrily.

            Swarbrick laughed under his breath with his copyrighted broad grinning smirk.  Pizarro put on his shining bronze badge while Swarbrick flipped the safety latch of his Ruger sidearm.  They walked across the village street to the unkempt front yard with a tired cadence.  The muted green streetlights hummed as dragonflies and mosquitoes buzzed in a brood cloud beneath the false illuminations of the blue twilight.

            The Feds sitting in their government plated Crown Vics erupted from the inauspicious vehicles at the cul-de-sac.  They drew gloks out from their holsters and surrounded Swarbrick and Pizarro.  Swarbrick flashed his badge while Pizarro with growing paranoia watched their movements in the periphery.  The Feds ignored the common courtesies and forced the Detectives to surrender their weapons.  Swarbrick sat down on the yellow dried out grass on his own, and found it amusing to pester this lot of ultra-serious no neck agents.  “Could I have a drink while I’m down here, boys?” 

            Through the panes of the front door, Maggie noticed the county policemen inside the circling sharks on her dead yard.  She put on her block-lettered FBI identification badge and loaded her black sidearm that had been collecting dust on the coffee table.  She left her blonde hair down as she continued on her way outside.

            The Federals outside lowered their guns as she left the darkened front hall.  She was the Special Agent in Charge (SAC), named by the US Attorney and the FBI Chieftain of the New Haven Field Office to command their presence in the Taconics.  There was little argument for conflict of interest here.  Maggie Bezzeg carried the reputation of a fiercely competitive and excellent undercover agent due to her aesthetic qualities as the euphemisms went.  Her career remained on the inside track to advancement as Deputy Director still seemed within reach. 

            “What’s going on out here, gentlemen?  You’re ruining my lawn.  Well, what’s left of it.”

            Swarbrick burst out in brief drunken laughter until Frankenstein tugged at his neck harshly.  “Caught these Cranbury pukes violating the house arrest.”  Frankenstein said happily pulling Swarbrick up by the shirt collar from the ground with one arm. 

            “Yeah, I know the court orders.  Did you ask them their business or got too excited to keep your guns in the holster?  Perhaps we should be a bit more patient with the local constabulary, even if they are the criminal element.”

            “The US-A told us to prevent any and all contact between Sergeant Bezzeg and his department, Mum.”  Frankenstein addressed her sarcastically with the proper English address.  His hold on Swarbrick gave slack as he mumbled cunt underneath his breath.

            “Thank you, Marshal Fielding.  Just give them back their guns and badges.  We do not need to write this up if our friends get on their way.” Maggie said looking at both men without emotion reading their equally misanthropic faces.    

            The Cranbury cops were brought to stand by the throng of impeccably clean bureau agents.  Swarbrick spoke with his hands cuffed behind his back. He contorted himself awkwardly and broke from the yoke as if he were escaping from a stray jacket.  Marshal Fielding quickly uncuffed Pizarro and walked away with the pair of manacles to his car.   

            Maggie reluctantly agreed to their lease proposal.  “I am coming with you then.  He is still my prisoner.” 

            Swarbrick laughed heartily under his breath before her glare bored into him so hard the he felt heat.  He kept his thoughts silent.  Beg’s right she’s more fun pissed.  Bloody gorgeous when she’s in an upset.  Lucky bastard Beg—you get to have that everyday.  I am such a horny devil, but still . . . I bet she’s wet downtown or at least tingling.  The Marshals and their goonish FBI counterparts departed muttering more anti-feminist profanity as they walked past Maggie back into their vans and patrolling the property to keep the journalists away.

FAR WEST Chapter Three

BISHOPS GATE

Maggie Bezzeg strolled along the mulch covered pathways of the gardens as bands of diaphanous light flickered amongst the leaves and branches of the larch trees that protected the space from the dirt and clay roads of the mountain village.  She passed underneath an arched vine trellis out to the cemetery hill that stood as a salient above a series of waterfalls and the city a thousand feet below.

            The Bishop sat underneath a large oak tree on the sallow grass at the far corner of the overcrowded cemetery poorly ensconced by an ancient farmer’s stone wall.  She was watching the falls and the clouds of mist and foam float back in her direction.  She heard nothing above the thunderous cavalcade of the surging water bombarding the hard granite and amethyst stained rocks at the base and the cataracts to which the river flowed down circumloquitously from the village to the lower reservoirs that serviced Cranbury and its pocket county.

            Maggie flanked the meditative Bishop in silence, carefully measuring her breaths and covering her footsteps under the deafening sound as she approached.  The Bishop turned around when she noticed that the shadows had moved.    

            “Ah, Mistress Bezzeg.  What brings you here?”

            “Your gardens are so beautiful, your grace.  This place reminds me of home more than any of the rest of the Vale.  I guess I needed to clear my mind.”

            “You are always welcome here.  I like you Mormons.  It’s so rare to find Christians that actually believe that God is still alive.”

            “I’m afraid that I have not been as saintly as the rest of the LDS.  I had wanted to visit Salt Lake, Nauvoo, and Palmyra, you know make the pilgrimages, but I never got around to it.”

            “No one is perfect, Mistress Bezzeg.”

            “Only the Jews, Bishop Gibbons.”

            She laughed quietly and motioned for Maggie to sit down with her.

            “Yes, I suppose that’s right.  Even those unfortunate enough to live in this detestable city.  It’s never too late to convert and become chosen.” 

            The Bishop turned to look south towards the distant undulating clock tower looming over the select skyscrapers of Kemken, Frost, and Barclays, the turrets of the old Castle Philip and its sprawling graveyard that covered the parade ground and surrounding hills, and the coal black soot escaping from the steam stacks of the public hospital.  The other landmarks of the Vale were enshrouded in the evening darkness and hardly worth mentioning now that they were so readily dismissed by the ecclesiastical master of the official Anglican Church for the Connecticut bishopric. 

            After she cleared the venom from the forethoughts of her mind, she returned to her guest.  “Well, my dear, what did you want to discuss?”

            “I think you know, if you watch television or read the newspapers.”

            “Your husband.”

            “I recall that he was a member of your church when he was a boy.”

            “Yes, yes, I remember Audie.  I taught his confirmation class.  He had me in stitches, funny as hell, and always got himself into meaningless troubles in school.  I suppose these troubles are a little too much even for him.”

            “I cannot but help feel guilty for the indictment.  I had to tell the truth to the Grand Jury and my superiors.”

            “And not your husband?  For him your actions are a betrayal of trust and that is the most intimate trust of wedlock.  I sound like Dr. Phil, don’t I?  Kerry watches both him and Oprah, it rubs off in osmosis.”

            “But the truth, is not that the most important thing?”

            “Well, yes, but only because God commands it.  That’s not exactly the most important compared to the covenant.  Love is the most important thing.  The love of God.  I doubt even that the Prophet says otherwise.”

            “I do love him.”

            “Have you told him this, lately?”

            “He knows how I feel.”

            “Then you should not feel guilty.  If he committed a crime then he committed a crime and should take his punishment.  I am sure he will do the right thing before judgment comes, mum.”

            “I am not so sure.”

            “He was always honest when I knew him.  You can’t make people laugh if it isn’t real.  People don’t really change, some have epiphanies and make amends for their sins, but they usually continue to do the exact same things.  Think about the kind of police work that he has been chosen to do.  Internal Affairs is not for the weak of mind or spirit, only in the movies or if Stephen Bochco is involved.  Sorry for that last reference, but ever since this writers’ strike television has become worse than ever, and I am easily upset.”

            “That is hard to believe, it’s always been awful.  Audie always told me that there are bad people everywhere.  The fact that it is members of the police and county bureaucracy committing these crimes makes it especially vile because they are supposed to be trusted by the public.  If the pigs aren’t brought to slaughter the whole society fails.”

            “That seems to be the jest of it, my dear.  If you can’t trust the police, who can you, trust?  Public safety is about providing society enough stability to develop, grow, and to simply survive.  We want peace for stability not morality.  Morals are my purview and even that is easily corrupted by politics, bad priests, and even the Queen herself.”

            “Are you sure that you are actually a Bishop?”

            “This is a dead-end position for apostates like me, my dear.  Bishop of Cranbury goes nowhere.  I suppose it’s because I have been corrupted by Philosophy and have doubts.  I shouldn’t have married a Professor of it, but alas, we do all sorts of stupid things when we are in love.”

            “Really, what is his specialty?”

            “Spinoza.  He could not have picked anyone more disruptive to organized religions than him, well maybe David Hume.”

            “Where does he teach?”

            “Well, he was right here in town, at Wycliffe, until it bankrupted and the Crown sacked everyone.”

            “That was unfortunate.”

            “You are telling me.  I can’t get him out of the house.  Why do you think I come here every day?” 

            Bishop Gibbons smiled broadly and waited for Maggie to laugh.  She did not laugh but understood her situation completely. 

            Neither of them wanted to be at home with their chosen companions during the day.  On one hand, Kerry could leave the house anytime he wanted to give his wife a break, but Audie on the other hand could not leave his front door.  Maggie was eager for his trial to finally begin.  She wanted her house back and desperately needed the silence that his absence afforded her, at least until he was in prison or no longer the scapegoat for the wholesale corruption that kept the city from drowning in the oblivion of abject poverty and turning into a massive shantytown that would shame its sister cities of La Paz or Quito.  

FAR WEST Chapter Two

OUT MY BACK DOOR

 “Rachel Cox—WQNP on the scene here in Cranbury, where a gunman has holed himself up in the observation deck of the Victoria Clock Tower.  The Gunman has been here since the clock stopped a little after three earlier on this afternoon.  Apparently that was about the time when he opened fire at people walking down the streets below around the vicinity of the Taconic and Brass Streets.  The police have moved their cars, ERT tanks, and Winnebagos.  The police have also brought in jersey barriers to form a temporary perimeter to try to keep the situation cordoned off and the public away from further gunfire. 

            “The Police have not been forthcoming with much new information nor has Gideon Hall, Mayor Ramsey’s office . . .,” the attractive young nilf reporter trailed off into more redundant information as the Director switched the shot to the WQNP newsroom on the New Haven Green and their on-air talent. 

            The desk anchors asked the usual hideously obvious and often redundant questions that were readily apparent to anyone who had listened to the report.  “Now Rachel, what has happened there in the past few hours?  Have there been any attempts to take the tower by force?  The use of a helicopter?  Anything to dislodge the shooter from the clock tower?” said one of the anchor talents back at the studio, holding his index finger to the earpiece in efforts to appear serious.

            “Well, earlier in the afternoon the Police sent the ERT, which is the Emergency Response Team, in.  The ERT crossed Taconic Street heading for the service entrance to the old Patriot newspaper offices.  The Shooter opened fire sending them scrambling back behind the police barricades on our immediate right—if the camera can get it into view.  As night falls little progress has been made since the last exchanges of gunfire.” 

            Rachel returned succinct answers.  She was careful to not mention the unconfirmed deaths of the shooting victims and police officers.  This direction avoided incurring their wrath for any insensitivity.  That is unless she paid the proper bribe to the police for such information, which still at this point could not be confirmed officially.

            “Has the gunman made any demands?” 

            The first female anchor, Tammy Blauser, who wore a two sizes too small yellow and blue Argyle sweater, asked.  She was the immediate replacement taken from the pool of weekend alternative anchors and was not on the best terms with Rachel or much of the rest of staff, who still missed Alison Schneider after she gave her two weeks notice and moved to CBS 6 in “Smallbany,” New York.

            “Not that I am aware of, Tammy.  It appears as though there has been no communication between the Shooter and the Police,” Rachel responded as she glanced over the erratic assemblage of city police cars a hundred yards from the camera.  “. . . For the WQNP News Service, I’m Rachel Cox, with a developing story that we will be following throughout its duration in the Vale . . .” 

            The first male anchor, George Sobieski, the one with the ridiculously straight white teeth, filled in the void for the segway into the commercials to come in without the dreaded dead air.  The Director came down from the control room during the commercial break and briefed the anchors more about the incident in Cranbury as it was reported by rival stations, the newspapers and the networks.  Most of the networks were going to bury the story somewhere between the fifth erectile dysfunction ad and the Sally Field once-a-month osteoporosis pill near the start of Jeopardy and the countless entertainment news/self advertising programs.

            “Rachel said she would work the story of the tower and the old paper into her next report, try to get something on the Shooter more than the police are telling us, but until that happens the story remains as it is, alright George and Tammy?  Eleven may be when she can have that, but even Rachel is not that dogged.”

            They acquiesced to the Director’s debriefing and prepared for the return of the live cameras for the remainder of the Five o’clock broadcast.  The Director scrambled back to the control room to hand off to his second before taking his much needed cigarette break.  The Director made his way outside through the rear of the building and up Elm and across Church before reaching the Green.

            He lit up and wandered aimlessly around the Lower Green until he found a place to sit that faced the columns of the Federal courthouse beside the fountain dedicated to the veterans of the Spanish War.  He watched the traffic fight its way down the one-way thoroughfares and the teamsters preparing the stage and rafters for the evening’s free concert.  Young children were chased after by their tired parents across the grassy fields as the dry leaves of oaks, cherries, and ashes bristled in the winds.  Dragging slowly on his smoke, he depressurized from the endless stresses of his job and began to contemplate where his relationship with Alison was going now that she was gone.

            Albany won’t be so bad.   I have been in this godforsaken place too long.  His thoughts were tranquil and calm.  A distant cry from the rollercoaster of emotions that plagued him while he commanded the control room.  No more nighttime curfews.  No more children shot outside the stoops of their homes.  No more Yale pukes getting away with everything imaginable.  I can’t wait to leave this city, too Alison.

            The Director looked down at his watch, staring at the big and little hands that read Five-thirty, before he noticed the US Marshals escorting the Federal Judges down the marble steps of the courthouse in their boring gray suits and near wraparound sunglasses—the kind that the elderly wear to protect their eyes from sun damage.  The Judges were brought to their waiting Lincoln Towncars that would speed away as soon as they closed the passenger doors as far from the city center as possible. 

            Peter Schneider laughed, noting that his sentiments were evidently shared by the Judges, and began his slow walk back to the studio.

FAR WEST Chapter One

 WEAPON AND THE WOUND

Under the shadows of the Tower—hidden deep within the festering weeds—the abandoned public library sat in its prison of solitude and decay.  The sun had descended behind the rim of the razor thin ridgeline that ringed the county.  Muted light slowly shrank away from the faded columns and tall dark glass paneled façade of the library.  

            Silence enveloped the dying core of this city of artifice and pollution.  The blithe zephyrs moved through the uncut grass, cycling through the black wrought iron fences onto the surface of the vacant boulevard that surrounded the green that was necessary in all of New England’s old towns and villages, because the Puritans as we all know loved lawn bowling and frolicking on Sundays.

            Horizontal stripes of red brick and mortar rose along the outer frame of the Tower hiding the rusted steel superstructure from the unsuspecting and uncaring public.  As it stood isolated on its lonely perch above the empty city green, birds and squirrels scurried across the fields searching for food in garbage and the fallen seeds of the shade trees and quad pathways.  The slow moving current of the murky brown serpentine river was broken up by the stained boulders and black alluvial loam rising out of the paved in channel. 

            The shadow of the Tower fell obtusely as the wind shot through the sky and the open air entrances and porticos of the downtown office buildings.  On the observation deck at the top of the vertiginous stairway beside the mothballed belfry acid-rain disfigured stone gargoyles stared over the sprawl of the city towards the reddish rocks of the mountain ring that contained Cranbury Vale.    

            A sudden white flash emanated from the Tower’s pulpit.  The gas exploded out from the barrel as the bullet was sent hurtling down rapidly towards the earth hundreds of feet below.  The shot whizzed over the hood of a green and black squad car and ricocheted off the sidewalk into the foregrounds of the state courthouse behind the cordon.   

The Shooter put his cigarette on the end of his rifle and squeezed the trigger.  A single shot rang out from the Tower, and in less than a second, the hollow point took down an unfortunate officer, who had unknowingly crossed in front of the Shooter’s rifle scope.  The lead entered through his ear, immediately underneath the rim of his black stormtrooper helmet, and was deposited where his brain met his spine. 

The boy lay shaking violently in the left turn lane underneath the traffic light that continued on its timed cycles.  His body was strewn out.  His arms were mixed up with the jumble of his now flaccid legs.  His bright blue irises remained dilated as he passed.

The Shooter stood back from the wall of the pulpit retreating calmly into the belfry holding his rifle tightly against the brick edifice.  The Shooter pulled the smoking butt out of his rifle’s end and took a long drag.  He breathed out with and watched the fluid vapors of smoke inundate the belfry walls and dissipate out into the wax paper orange of the setting sun beyond the ridgeline.

            The Shooter fired off another round.  The shot burrowed itself through the dead boy’s shoulder blade escaping out his back into the pavement.  The weary ERT soldiers fled for cover behind the rows of crudely parked police cars forming the security cordon. 

“He can see every fucking thing we try to do.  Every breach.  Every approach.  Every goddamn play we run!”  Major Templeman threw his hat to the ground and proceeded to stamp it out agitatedly as if it were on fire.  He crouched down to the road and retrieved it, dusting it off before he put it back over his balding head. 

            Lieutenant Rakove, wearing his earphones around his neck like a doctor’s stethoscope, took the opportunity to add his thoughts to the general discussion.  “He’s got the higher ground.  Nothing even comes within a thousand feet of the Tower.  No hostages.  No demands.  No nothing.  He wants blood.” 

            Rakove shrugged his shoulders as he pulled the black Red Sox baseball cap from his head of retreating of platinum gray hair.  He looked over to Templeman with the expression of disappointment that was closer to apathy than sadness.  The Shooter, in unmistakable control, was long past listening to their reason and waited for the expected suicide-by-SWAT.

            Major Templeman dismissed Rakove away through the picket lines and returned to his command post on the hood of his totaled car.  Rakove cleared his throat, loudly, as he walked past the gathering masses of gawkers, whom he callously referred to as the carnal masses or simply morons.  He tasted the faint metallic treacle of his blood and grimaced in disgust. 

            Rakove itched the heavy bags that hanged underneath his bloodshot eyes.  He was infinitely tired—run ragged by his passionless job.  For a few months now, he had been the lone negotiator in the Vale.  Bezzeg had filled in for often three or four other positions in the Department in the absence of those who had been arrested, moved on to greener pastures, or were killed.  Rakove thought to himself, no one escapes this place.  And even you came back to the Vale with your wife, if you can call her that, despite it all?  What a poor fuck you are, Beg. 

            Policemen dressed in black uniforms ran behind the first row of Crown Victorias leaving a film of red behind as they pulled the limp body away.  That kid looks fresh out of high school, still a virgin.  I was that age when records were still on vinyl, when Grand Funk Railroad, Boston and Clapton ruled the airwaves—long before this bullshit cybernetic age.  Wish the goddamn Amish would bring us to our senses.  It’s bloody unlikely, at least in the menstrual Vale.  Was that too misogynistic or just misanthropic—who really cares?  No one that matters.    

Rakove deferred them passage first and he continued back to his car.  He opened the rear trunk of his Ford Contour and stowed away his Kevlar vest, windbreaker and various other articles of his work equipment.  Beads of shaded light burned their last flicker down his neck forcing him to grasp the affected places and pick up his pace.  He was eager to reach his home before nightfall. 

The vestigial gasping rays of sun cast the city in a hallowed reddish buff.  The refracted illuminations lit up the remnant clouds in rich auburns and titians that gave way for dunkler pinks and heller purples the further from the light source.  The day was fading fast and at long last the police could hide their movements from the both the Shooter and the throngs of on-lookers under the cover of darkness.

            At the operational headquarters at the front of the cordon, stammering about behind the green and black checkerboard panda car, Major Templeman continued on his absent tirade.  As they watched the Major descended further into his madness, the ERT Commander and the aldermen of the Police Commission patiently chose their moments to pressure him to a decision. 

            “Ask Lou—Sergeant Bezzeg if he’ll do it,” Templeman retorted.

            “He was suspended forever,” the ERT Commander said sharply.

            “For what now?”  Major Templeman was livid. 

             Commander Jaskilka answered.  “Well, the Grand Jury indicted Bezzeg for, involuntary manslaughter, racketeering, bribery, excessive force, and about a dozen more counts.” 

            “It’s always something with Bezzeg, idn’t it?  Well, Commander tell that limey bitch SAC to get him here right now, before another one of our boys or girls gets their brains shot out through the back of their fucking skulls!” 

            “Sir, she won’t give much of a shit about this—.”  Jaskilka spoke slowly to Templeman, who remained heated, as evident in the bulging blood vessels that suffused his forehead, face, and neck in a skein covering the canvas of his pale skin.

            “I want this settled now!  Get the best man for the job and end it.  Bust him out of house arrest I don’t care—just fucking get him here!” 

            “Inspectors Swarbrick and Pizarro from Vulture squad could retrieve Sergeant Bezzeg.  He was their shift commander.”  The Chief of Detectives, Aguinaldo, pointed to the tastelessly dressed detective constables at another car smoking cheap Tampa cigars. 

            “Fine, Chief.”  Templeman assented as Aguinaldo shouted over to them. 

            The two caught Aguinaldo’s signal and reacted immediately.  They got up and quickly came to the situation commanders.  Both stood at loose attention against the starboard side of the shot out police car.

            “Get Bezzeg.  No questions.  Just get him here.  And tell that cunt wife of his anything you’d like.  We can’t have her fucking anything else up for us.”  Templeman said to the detectives.

            The older and somewhat grizzled detective, Swarbrick, in his usual tone and heavy indecipherable Scottish dialect, grudgingly accepted the rescue assignment and asked, “Will we be getting any hazard pay out of this, Major?”

            “Yeah, if we had the money to pay you.  How about some store credit?”  Templeman quipped. 

            The partners walked away from the operational headquarters, through the fray of local television reporters, many of which were the masturbation fodder for the entire department and most of the boys (ages 10-85) in the viewership area.  It was difficult to find other endeavors to mollify this kind of ceaseless boredom that pervaded modern life.  Many of these reporters, surprisingly, or in total denial of the existence of youtube or “News-I’d-like-to-Fuck (NILF)” internet sites, were unaware of such enthusiasm for their appearances on the endless half-hour newscasts that aired throughout the day on cable, podcasts, on-demand HD channels and regular local television broadcasts. 

            Swarbrick had dated a few along with his many wives as had various others in service of the County, but Pizarro wisely stayed clear of such extra-curricular carnal activities for fear of his wife and mother-in-law from Ecuador, who lived with them above the carport listening all-day to Luis Miguel as if he were the second coming.  He could not hide anything from them and feared for his penqueno regularly and any further risk was ill-advised.           

            “Where does he live?” Pizarro said as he opened the door to their sienna Crown Vic sedan.

            “Up 88 aways in Cathedral past the Tunnels.  Think the Feds got that place bottled up tighter than your twat.”

            “Shut-up with that shit.  I thought that the tunnel collapsed three years ago.”  Pizarro closed the door behind him after he sat down in the driver’s seat.  Swarbrick, who never drove on account of his various drunk driving arrests, sat in the passenger seat drumming his fingers against the dashboard to the Dire Straits song on the radio in efforts to further exacerbate his partner.

“It did.”

            “Well, either way we go . . . the Feds are still cocksuckers.” said the shorter Pizarro as he backed the car up inside of the cordon.

            “We’re not talking bout priests, here buddy.  We’re talking more bout tha—

            “Shut the fuck up, you Calvinist prick.”

            “Knoxist.  I am Presbyterian.  Church of Scotland.  Calvin’s Swiss.  When you make your slurs you should make sure to get them correct.”

            “All you Wasps are the same.” 

            The beat officers removed one barrier segment of the cordon, granting the detectives passage.  They drove on through the thickly spread crowd and quickly faded from sight into the darkness provided by the shadows of the closely packed skyscrapers of the old downtown.

            “I’m not Anglo-Saxon, you dumb retarded shit.  Scottish ain’t English, but don’t tell Al Sharpton.  He might take it the wrong way.”

            Pizarro drove southward through the sleepy downtown past the Frost office building to catch State Highway 88 North towards the mountain hamlet of Cathedral.  The road was empty.  The city’s rush hour was just a short hitch in the usual quiet of another dog day.    

            “. . . I still think that Shooter was the worst movie since Commando.”

            “Rhona Mitra is fucking hot.  Any movie with her in it cannot be half bad.”

            “I still think the movie was shit and I don’t care who sues me.  I liked the Parallax View the first time I saw it.  Besides . . .  Nick Memphis, what kind of character name is that?  Sounds like a wrestler from the 50s.  Let me pick the fucking movie next time and no Marky Mark and the funkless bunch.”

            “It’s just a movie, relax, aios mio bendejo.” 

            Swarbrick was incensed as was the case when it came to the bad trips to the cinema, the Hartford or New Haven theatres, and the Wycliffe Heretics college hockey games versus their hated rivals Yale and Quinnipiac that always ended in drunken riots.  He hated everyone and everything, but it was only the arbitrary things that truly aroused his heated resentment.  Swarbrick’s eyes closed without hesitation. 

Pizarro sped up the entrance ramp and took to the fast far left-hand lane.  The car spewed out its heavy gray exhaust complimenting the summer haze.  This perpetually supernal smog belt of spent carbon gases truncated the waning hours of the day.

            “Why is this road always so shitty?” Pizarro asked himself. 

            He sat awkwardly in the driver’s seat without the seatbelt.  That was really not his fault; none of the radio cars had seatbelts and none before them.  The County would not waste money on such ridiculous and unnecessary expenditures that is unless some one died and they lost the inevitable lawsuit to a personal injury lawyer who advertises on television during Jerry Springer and Maury Povich.  You are not the Father!  The chances of that were steadily increasing.

            The car sped calmly north.  The further from the city they traveled the more trees flanked the quiet highway.  The northbound and southbound lanes weaved in between dense stands of firs, birches, and rock maples.  The embankments and grounds were lined with vetch, heather, and Penn’s Gift which rose alongside the gentle slopes closer to the detached hamlet and the dormant ski areas that could never hope to advertise themselves as resorts. 

            The unmarked obvious to all police car bounced hard against a yards wide pothole as they entered the Cathedral tunnel.  The wax paper yellow light of the conduit tube illuminated the sedan for the two minutes spent driving under the mountain.  The rim of their front wheel came loose and was promptly crushed by an eighteen-wheeler, scrapping bright yellow sparks across the circular hole.  The truck was filled with urinal cakes bound for the Berkshires as it would take the Jacob’s Ladder once it entered Massachusetts about another thirty miles north of the Vale.

Meanwhile far from the Cathedral Tunnel, Lieutenant Rakove arrived at his home in the Cavalier Lake section of the Vale, which lay eight kilometers south of the Wycliffe campus near the southern ridge that separated the county from the interstate and the distant lights of Danbury and Meriden.  He left his gear in the car and closed the garage door manually before entering the mudroom to be greeted by his eager dogs.  They showed him the kind of undying loyalty that reminded him of the stark difference between his wife’s equivocations and the certainty of the dogs’ love.

            After the dogs gave him their obligatory welcome, rolling on their backs and urinating blindly into the air, they ran back upstairs to the master bedroom to sleep in his empty bed.  He fumbled through the refrigerator finding nothing but those items well past their expiration date. 

            He decided to drink what was left of the alcohol supply that his wife had not taken on her most recent and unannounced departure.  She left a bottle of Jim Beam behind a mold infested Grey Goose underneath the kitchen sink among the leaking plastic containers of household cleaners.  She hated the taste of bourbon, finding its aftertaste uncivilized.             

            Rakove took his seat at the circular pine table in the center of the kitchen underneath the hanging lamp.  He set a shot glass next to the bottle of bourbon, which he promptly poured.  He proceeded to raise a toast for Bezzeg and began to pound them down singing along to his Blind Faith record, at least the Steve Winwood parts forsaking Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker and that other nameless guy. 

            The music of his living memory was comforting, a welcome change of pace from his day talking down suicides, liquor store gunmen, and junkies, but more so from the artificial traumas that his wife selfishly fabricated to run-away to her mothers in Thomaston and complain incessantly. 

            The bourbon burned on his throat before his bloodstream became infected with the poison.  His brain numbed to a level of unbreakable tranquility.  This peace would end the following morning when she made her grande entrance, rife with all the eccentricity and melodrama of a good telenovela.  Ivonne was trapped in her childish petulance and John’s steadily growing apathy for life.  This was the nature of their non-committal relationship.  Everything was a part of an unwinnable game of spite and accusation, which she overtly enjoyed, where escape and divorce were forbidden.  He put his gun into his mouth.  The final cymbal crash of Can’t Find my way Home ringed in his ears as he fell to the floor.

Far West Prelude

This is the opening of a novella, Far West, that I have been working on and off writing for nearly ten years, its never perfect enough.

PRELUDE:

Before I was known as Margaret Reed Bezzeg, when I was a young girl enrolled at St. Teresa’s in the North of England, now nearly thirty years ago this fall, I often stole myself away from the other students and the sisters.  In those silent moments, I was able to find comfort in the words of my people, who have been given more of the immortal message through the Prophet and the golden plates buried under the Hill Cumorah.  And you need not worry I will not try to convert you; I was merely born into this faith.  It was not a conscious choice only the cards dealt to me in the cosmic game. 

We, the so-called Saints, exist to challenge the decadence that infects those who are overly smug and comfortable with the mediocrity of life and to spread the teachings of our Prophet to the masses who have corrupted the original message.  We are hated with good measure for our lack of humour, fun, and any toleration of social and theological criticism.  Cranbury, on the other hand, was hated because it was failing.  The vultures came out of the woodwork eager to feed on the brass city as it neared its inevitable end.

                Over the course of my life from England to here in the hills of Western Connecticut, I came to ponder these things that went well beyond the scope of a force-fed Ursuline education.  Such thoughts and ideas that were detrimental to becoming the proper and correct Catholic that I certainly was not.  The brides of Christ would be quite disappointed that their carrot and stick, minus the carrot, tact had failed to convince to denounce my false pagan cult religion.  But, that is their vocation and I do not harbor any lingering hatred for their unbelief in our Prophets. 

            Above all of my dull reminiscing, there was one particular subject that haunted me and that was history.  Who will remember us after we are gone? For those of us who are not among the chosen to join the pantheon of the Gods and Saints, who dares remember our mark?  What is the point if nothing survives death? 

             My husband, Audie Bezzeg, our hero of the day, has never known how very afraid that I am of being forgotten—in total oblivion.  To be as if I never were.  He says, “It matters not what waits for us.  It makes no difference, no matter at all, Maggie.”  He is a nihilist.  The influence of Daoism and the other more sanguine faiths have warped his mind into believing in nothing, as disgusting as any Atheist and as delusional as any Satanist. 

            My usual response to his typical indifference has been continually:  “One thousand years from now who will remember anything of our time.  Who remembers history?  Can the history of cities made with all the hopes and dreams of those before us possibly be remembered as they are now?  Ancient cities like Nauvoo, Edo, London, Thebes, Rome, Ctesiphon, Jerusalem, and Babylon have soaked into the collective consciousness of many as these cities once had a great importance to the timeline of human events.  They brought us to where we are and will lead us to where we are going, well where we hope we are going.  For those fallen cities resting in the nothingness of that existential cul-de-sac, some one must remember for the sake of the dead and gone.”

            “Even Cranbury, Maggie?  It’s been dying since before my great-grandfather was even born.  The Ghost City of Connecticut—like some tragic theme park run by the Dolorean Corporation or Carl Icahn.”

            “Even Cranbury.  This city will be remembered despite itself.”

            He will say in that painfully illiterate sounding Connecticut dialect, “Shut up Magpie, yah talk too much.  Yah cry too much.  Yah complain too much.  You’ll be as dead as I will be and there is nuttin’ that can save yah or anyone else from death.  Death is the end and there is no coming back.  Cranbury is dead.”

            Like I have said, he believes in nothing.