Her brothers started laughing at her. “She just doesn’t know how,” one of them said.
“Well, I can show you,” I said.
I thought she was the prettiest thing I had ever seen and I wasn’t gonna give up. Day after day went by until she finally agreed to let me teach her. Then one day I just came right out and asked her for a kiss, and she let me. It’s been me and her ever since. All the way through high school and college.
CLEAR!
My father was my hero. He taught me everything a growing boy should learn. He taught me about consequences. He taught me about following my instincts and finding my true north in this world.
He taught me about ownership.
He wasn’t only my hero; he also happened to be the town Sheriff, and I aimed to follow in his footsteps.
I studied Law Enforcement in College. Em went to the same school and we spent most nights together in my dorm room. This night was like most others. We hung out doing our homework together—well, she did most of my Math for me, while I pretended to pay attention.
The heart rate monitor beeps.
It seemed like the world was truly our oyster, a world of unlimited possibilities where failure just wasn’t ever an option. Then one night, while we were lying in bed, daydreaming of our future, there was knock at the door.
I opened the door to see a Deputy standing there. He was holding a hat in front of his heart as if he was about to pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. “Daniel Corbin?”
“Yes.”
“There’s been an accident and your presence is requested at home.” “What?”
“It’s your father.”
Emily jumped off the bed and ran to my side. “What happened?” “It’s best if you just come with me, please.”
I grabbed Emily by the hand and we followed him down the hallway. The Deputy wouldn’t say what this accident was, but I knew. I could feel it.
My hero was gone.
He had been killed while trying to help a woman stranded on the side of the road. I’d love to say it was just an accident, like the Deputy did, but this was no accident. It was some asshole Tweaker boyfriend of hers, riddled with paranoid sleep deprivation, that walked right up and shot him in the head.
The heart rate monitor flatlines.
This was the first thing in my life that didn’t go exactly the way I wanted it to. It left me feeling very broken and I had no idea where I was going to go from here. The whole point of being a cop was to help people, but in this moment, I began to see that maybe the advantage of being a cop was to go after these kinds of monsters.
The streets, the world, were out of control and it all needed to be cleaned up. I began spending a lot less time hanging out with Emily and a lot more time at the shooting range. I also took it upon myself to conduct a makeshift neighborhood watch and decided that it was time to get some hands-on training as a cop. I didn’t do anything too excessive; I and some like-minded buddies just drove a few Tweakers out past the city limits and left them in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, to fend for themselves.
The heart rate monitor flatlines.
Was it wrong? Maybe. But it definitely wasn’t as wrong as what they were doing and what happened to my dad. This was just a phase and finally, after having some time to grieve, I found my way back to Emily and she got me steady again. I stopped my late-night heroics and got focused on her and our future again.
It’s because of her that I finished college and was able to focus, once again, on the true meaning of becoming a police officer. It is to serve and protect. I had to accept that what happened to my dad was not every Tweaker’s fault, only the fault of the asshole who did it. So why
-
Clear!
Why in the hell did that Tweaker choose MY dad, that’s what I wanted to know, and why in the hell shouldn’t I blame every Tweaker in the county? They’re all the property -
Clear!
“Who in the hell keeps saying that!” I shouted into the pitch-black world as I opened my eyes and focused on a blurry reflection of myself floating in front of me.
“Clear!”
The world flashes black again, then comes back into focus as an EMT holds defibrillator paddles to my chest.
I’m standing next to him. Standing next to me.
Reality begins to sink in.
I watch my chest rise with the voltage.
Suddenly I’m floating. “Clear!” he shouts again.
There’s that burn, grabbing my chest and pulling me down to my body.
“Hang in there, Sheriff!” said one of the EMTs.
Well shit, I guess I finally got my ass kicked. Before this I was in control. I owned this town and everyone in it. I was about to own a whole lot more till June and her little friends came along. Those fuckers banded together to be pains in my ass.
My daddy always said that life is a game of catch and release. He said you can’t ever really own anything. The moment your life becomes about ownership, the things you’re trying to take possession of will just turn right around and take possession of you.
He used to like to use fireflies as an example. Fireflies in a jar.
No matter how big or how small. Catch fireflies in a jar.
You capture and kill a star.
Then the star will burn no more. Fireflies should not be in a jar.
Anyway, I guess at some point in my life I decided to challenge all of that, and I did.
I owned a lot.
Now, well, I guess I’m dead. Someone else owned me.
“Life is about consequences,” Emily said as she stood over my body. My sweet Emily.
Interesting how my final moments look so much like hers, as she lay in the delivery room, hemorrhaging from some freak accident that robbed her of the rest of her days.
That was then, and this is now. She stood there, over my lifeless body. I don’t think it ever occurred to me that I would be seeing her when I died. I’m not sure why.
I guess it’s because I had my mind made up that she went up north, and I’d be going down south. Once I had that locked into my mind, it was all fair game. If I had known then what I know now, I would have made a lot of different choices, a whole boatload of them. Shit, a whole county of them. But I didn’t.
I stared down at the floor, face flushed in shame.
I am not a man. I am not anything. I am unworthy of her presence. “Danny?”
I glanced up at her, like a scared little boy who just got caught doing something very, very wrong.
She’s holding a HUGE syringe.
“Each day is a new beginning,” she said as she raised the syringe high in the air and slammed that son of a bitch into my heart.
The weight of a freight train crushes the light, crushes my chest, and sets my soul on fire. I mean, literally on fire. I was burning from the inside out. So this is it. I was right; I’m on my way down under. Isn’t it ironic that the person I loved most in my life ended up being the one that opened the door?
The afterlife is a lot more painful than I could have ever imagined. I could feel the fire rushing through my entire circulatory system. It was crushing my chest, rushing