blocks away. Eric rested his cheek against the phone booth’s cool metal. A minute later, a police cruiser with darkly tinted windows turned onto the street. He started to step out, to wave, then fear welled up, making him weak. Across the sidewalk, he saw a deep doorway to duck into, but there was no way to get there without being seen. He stayed in the kiosk and tried to act like he was busy, which felt ridiculous since the phone was broken. He opened the directory to the yellow pages and studied them. The car stopped at the curb, and the window rolled down.
A tired voice from inside said, “Sir, would you mind stepping next to the car?” Eric looked behind him. Nobody had ever called him “Sir” before.
“Me?” he said.
The voice deepened, became threatening. “Don’t make me get out.” Eric moved by the cruiser and bent so he could see in the window. What he noticed first was in the back seat, a stack of what he took to be heavy, black plastic tarps. Eric didn’t understand why tarps would have zippers on them though. Then he saw the officer’s revolver. His stomach gripped into a tight ball. The revolver rested on the seat, and the officer’s hand was on it. His mirrored sunglasses reflected a distorted picture. “Give me the stereo,” he said.
For a second Eric didn’t move. He didn’t know what the officer meant, then he unclipped the cassette player from his belt, disconnected the headphones and offered the player to the policeman. When he didn’t stir, Eric dropped it on the seat. It bounced once. Without moving his head, the officer’s hand floated from the gun and picked up the cassette player. He held it in front of his glasses, then floated it back to the seat. His movements were smooth and careful. Eric didn’t want to make him angry. The man made Eric think of a snake, a meticulous, cautious predator, ready to burst into motion any second.
“Now, the backpack,” he said.
Eric shucked the strap off his shoulder and placed it next to the cassette. The hand drifted from the gun, undid the straps and explored the contents. He lifted each item out and placed it carefully on the seat until the empty bag sagged beside him.
During the process, Eric thought about fidgeting, but he held himself still. He knew he should be frightened, but now he felt detached, almost meditative about what was happening, as if he were hovering above the sidewalk watching the scene unroll. Maybe the event was too surreal, like one of those weird paintings he’d seen in art books where mountains levitated in living rooms and watches melted over tree branches.
He couldn’t see the man’s eyes, but it suddenly occurred to him that they wouldn’t be malicious eyes, not the eyes of a killer; they would be crazed eyes. Below the officer’s sunglasses, even in the tinted window shadows in the car, Eric saw deep, purple circles like twin bruises. The man’s face sagged from his cheekbones. His hair, brown streaked with gray, stuck out in uncombed angles from under his hat. Crumpled fast food sacks and crushed Styrofoam cups covered the floor of the cruiser. The car smelled strongly of old coffee and sweaty clothes. Eric knew—he didn’t know how— that the rigidity of the man’s posture, the unnaturally precise hand movements, masked exhaustion and madness. For the first time in his life, Eric felt like he understood something about someone else. He felt a connection to him, an empathy, as if for this instant they were sharing the same thoughts. The policeman must have been patrolling for days, maybe never getting out of the car, just driving and looking and upholding the law because he didn’t know what else to do. Eric felt very sorry for the policeman, though Eric knew he was a hair’s width away from being shot.
He wanted to say some kind thing to him, but he didn’t know how to start.
The officer said, his voice gravelly and no less threatening than before, “Looters don’t last in this town.”
“Yes, sir. I’m just looking for my dad,” said Eric.
The man started to replace Eric’s goods to his backpack. His hand shook slightly as he lifted a can of peaches.
“Let me help,” said Eric as he leaned into the car and reached for the can. The peaches dropped from the policeman’s hand, and in it he held the gun. He was very fast. Eric tried to swallow, couldn’t. The end of the barrel, only a foot from his face, looked a mile wide and infinitely deep. Trapped, his head in the car and off balance, Eric heard the policeman’s hard and heavy breath. The man said, “Do you know Gloria?” The gun didn’t waver.
Eric tried to answer, but he couldn’t force a word through his throat. He shook his head no. The gun sank to the backpack, and the officer gazed out the front window, turning away from Eric. His voice became distant and soft. “She’s about your age. At the hospital with her mom now. They got a touch of something,” the policeman said. He focused suddenly on Eric, and his voice became business-like. “I thought maybe you went to school with her.”
Cupped loosely around the pistol grip, the man’s hand fascinated Eric. He tried to speak again and squeaked out, “I go to Littleton High.”
“A Littleton Lion.” The policeman slid the gun onto his lap and stuck it between his legs so the barrel pointed down and the grip was still visible. “I was a Golden High Knight. Played football.” He licked his lips.
Eric let out a long breath silently and realized he hadn’t been breathing. “Uh huh,” he said.
“Thousand people buried in that football field now.” The policeman gripped the steering wheel. He was wearing a black glove on his left hand. “Don’t think the Knights will have a good season this year,” he said.
He plucked the radio microphone from the dash and held it to his lips. “Tanner, this is Buck. I’m on 12th and Jackson talking to a Littleton Lion. What you got?”
The radio crackled feebly.
He rested the microphone on his lap and continued to stare out the front window. “Gloria thinks she might be a cheerleader. She’s a little bony, but she can do the gymnastics. Eight years of lessons.” His chest expanded as he took a deep breath, and when he finally let it out, it shook. “Her mother’s real proud. Bought us shirts that say
His chin dropped to his chest as if he were too tired to hold it up any longer. “I’m a ghost cop,” he said.
“Except I’m alive and the city died.” Then he waved his hand vaguely in Eric’s direction. “You can go.”
Quickly, Eric filled his backpack and grabbed his headphones and cassette player. The policeman didn’t move. When Eric backed his head out of the window, he started to thank the man—he felt like he should—but then Eric realized the policeman had fallen asleep. His face looked peaceful, and Eric made a sudden connection, an’ understanding of the policeman in a different role. Eric shook with it, the empathy was so strong. The policeman looked like a man at halftime at a football game, tired from his day’s work, but at the game because his daughter was going to cheer. Eric wished that he could tell him the day was okay, that his bony daughter dazzled the crowd, jumping high, clapping her hands, throwing back flips for the team as it entered the field.
Instead, Eric stepped back quietly. Brightness of the sun through the smoke, after the darkness of the car, made him blink back tears.
Smoldering ruins dominated the north end of Golden, and the closer he pedaled to the Coors plant, the fewer intact buildings he found. Two jewelry stores side by side, A Touch of Gold and a Zales, had been cleaned out. A spray of velvet display pads littered the sidewalk. After a few blocks, he turned and headed south, but he had no idea where to go now. Should he return to the cave and wait for Dad? How long should he wait before searching again? The image of his mother’s body lying still under the plastic chilled him. Thinking about crawling into the cave again to face that lump under the black visqueen made him shake his head. He would ride the bike to Littleton. Dad might have gone there, though he couldn’t think of a reason that he would. What really decided him, was the idea of being home. He imagined his bedroom, the posters on the walls, the books lined neatly on the shelves, and his bed, a place of safety and normality. If he could just get home, things would be all right. All of this would go away. He wouldn’t have to think about policemen who lost their daughters or cars filled with frightened, angry people being shot at a road block.
At the bottom of Jackson Street, he reached the high school. “Have a good summer!” read the marquee in front of the school. A pair of unattended backhoes squatted on the torn up remains of the football field. One goal post lay on its side. The other stood, a solitary sentinel. He turned onto 24th Street, hoping that it would take him back to U.S. 6 and out of town.
24th ended at Illinois Ave and he could see the highway at the crest of the hill to his right. In the distance, a long way up the hill with several smaller hills between, the two roads intersected. Breaths came hard in the smoky air as he struggled to pedal up the slope. Because he kept his eyes closed part of the time, or stared at the goose neck of the bike so he wouldn’t have to look at the hill in front of him, he missed the first black shapes lying on the
