Tiff works part time as a legal advisor with Children’s Services Division and part time with the Public Defender’s office, the latter being part of our conflict. The other part is because I’m a cop. Now, I like to think that I might—might—have eventually learned to tolerate her defending the kinds of people I arrest, but I know that she would never learn to tolerate that my job was to “oppress the already oppressed,” as she put it about twenty times. A lot of old hippies and young granola eaters say that stuff, wave their signs at protests, and call law enforcement the “Gestapo.” Some actually believe it while the majority just want to protest something and raise a little hell. Tiff is one of the believers, a hardcore one.
Tiff took the first step to end our “relationship.” One night, when neither of us had much to say to each other and the quiet was not a comfortable one, she came right out and said that we needed to stop this, that it wasn’t healthy for either of us. I knew she was right, but since I was still in my Lawrence Olivier mode, I protested, though not all that hard. There was no more pretending for Tiff, though, not even to soften it for me. The more she spoke, the more bitter she became. She didn’t shout or call me names, but spoke quietly using words that burned into me.
“I can’t deal with what you do,” she said. “I understand it on an intellectual level, I get that we need police, but it scares me. Not that you might get hurt—”
Gee thanks.
“—but I’m scared of what it will do to your psyche. It frightens me to think what being exposed to so much violence will do to you. I’m worried that you will become bitter and angry and a racist. I hate that cops have to put on that swagger and macho bullshit air just to survive their job. I think it’s only a matter of time before you’re that way.”
I started to tell her how weak and ridiculous her argument was, how she was charging me with a crime I had yet to commit, and how she was worried about my swagger all the while she was turning into the Thought Police. Also how—
“Sam?” Tiff says, waving the hand towel in my face and bringing me back to the moment.
“Huh?”
“I said I’m still painting my place.”
I’d already determined that since she’s got gray paint smears on her fingers and tank top.
She tosses the towel to me, a move that launches her unencumbered breasts into glorious motion.
Her breasts! The sex. It was the kind that’s so frighteningly intense that you’re convinced that it’s okay to die after because life couldn’t possibly offer you anything better. It’s also why we’ve been seeing each other for booty calls. “Friends with benefits” one of my students called it when telling me about his setup with an old girlfriend. Good name. Good deal, too. So far.
About three weeks after we’d stopped seeing each other she called to see how I was doing. I couldn’t tell if she really wanted to know or if she was just feeling me out for a conjugal visit. When it comes to sex she thinks like a man, which I’ve always thought to be a real solid attribute. Whatever her reason, I was glad she called.
“Got the den to do and that’s it,” Tiff says, as I lean against the sink drying my hands. I have to think for a second what we were talking about. Oh yeah, painting her place. When we were both in the glow of the first few weeks of our relationship, we talked about her moving in with me. Dumb, I know, but we were both enamored and blind. The idea was for her to spruce up her condo to sell. Apparently, she’s still painting. My friend, Mark, would argue that she hasn’t given up on us cohabitating, but that’s not it. She knows and I know that there’s just no way. I think she just wants different colored walls.
Tiff walks over to me and places a hand on my chest. “You look better tonight than you did last week. I’m thinking the sessions with Kari are helping.”
“So are the sessions on my heavy bag. Maybe even more than the shrink.” I touch the back of her hand and smirk. “And the sessions with you, too.”
She smacks my chest. “You’re impossible. No matter how down you feel you’re always up for that.”
“Cute pun. And you’re not?”
She moves toward the refrigerator. “When do you see Kari next?”
“Tomorrow at noon. Gotta do it; she’s got the power to release me.”
Tiff pulls out a plastic bowl, pries off the lid and sniffs the chicken I made up last night. She looks at me questioningly. “There wasn’t much enthusiasm in that. Thinking twice about not going back?”
Is that hope I hear in her voice?
“No, I want to go to work.” I think I do, anyway. “It’s been two months and I’m feeling better about the idea. It’s just that… you know…” I turn around and fill a glass of water. “… my head.”
“Kari said it takes time. Are you still having the dreams? Last time I came over you were shouting in your sleep. Scared me half to death.”
“It was pretty intense on my end, too.” I pick up a chicken leg, look at it for a moment and drop it back into the bowl. Sometimes it’s hard to get food down, which is why I’ve lost weight. “The dream always starts out the same… first it’s his face, then it changes to mine. To my face. I’m shooting… my friggin’ face. Can you believe that?”
Tiff shakes her head without comment. I can’t tell if the gesture is out of empathy or disgust. The couple of times I’ve brought up the shooting during her sleepovers, she’s never said anything, which is more annoying than if she’d shout her disapproval that I killed someone.
I turn back to the sink and begin washing my hands again. “I’ll get through it.”
“You will, Sam,” she says, stepping up along side me and frowning as she watches me rinse off the soap. “I know you and I know you will.” Her attempt at being supportive is almost funny; I give her props for faking it. Actually, we’re both continuing to fake it. Oh man, I don’t want to get back doing that again.
I pick up the towel and rub at my hands. “Thank you,” I mumble. “You hearing anything new at the defender’s office?”
Tiff shrugs. “My friends always ask me how you’re doing.”
Suuuure they do.
“I heard some cops in the courthouse a couple of days ago talking about you. They said it was a ‘clean shoot.’”
Clean shoot. Man, she had to struggle to utter those words. If the cops had said “righteous shoot” she would have probably needed the Heimlich maneuver.
“That’s nice,” I grunt. I turn back to the sink and twist on the faucet.
“Your hands are clean!” Tiff snaps, reaching around me to turn off the spigot. She tugs my arm to turn me toward her. “They—Are—Clean.”
I look at her for a long moment. Where did that come from? Why does she care? Or is she just irritated?
Her face relaxes, looking like it was a struggle to do so. “You know, I’m tough enough to kick your butt all the way to Fifth Avenue.”
I widen my eyes in mock fear, happy that she brought us back to the task at hand.
“So you want any chicken or not?”
“How about I take a quick shower first then I’ll have a couple of pieces?”
Thirty minutes later, Tiff ’s in the bathroom and I’m sitting on the edge of the bed freshly cleaned, wearing black boxers and a red T-shirt. I’m