A DONE DEAL
When I got a text that he had hit his wife, my daughter, and that she had not brought charges, I packed a few things and drove ten hours to the City.
I parked my car on the street
where I could watch the entrance of their building, a brownstone townhouse a
block west of Central Park, in the upper 80s. They had an apartment on the
second floor.
I sat and waited for three
hours, listening to cool jazz and watching hundreds of passers-by, pursuing their
urbane lives frenetically as the squirrels in the park foraged for seeds and
crumbs.
Finally I saw them coming down
the block. At the top of the stairs, he held the door open for her. She entered
without speaking, without looking at him.
I got out of my car, climbed
the eight stairs to the top of the stoop and pushed the button for 2F on the
intercom. She said, “Who’s there?” I answered, “It’s me.” The door was buzzed
open.
I stood before them now in the
front room of their cramped little flat. I looked into his eyes and without
saying a word pulled the 9 mm from the pocket of my jacket.
She screamed, “Daddy! No!” But
it was a done deal.
I shot him once in the gut.
I shot him once in the gut.
He now sat on the floor,
several feet behind where he had been standing. He groaned, “Don’t shoot me
again, please! It won’t happen a
second time!” He struggled to his knees, his hands outstretched.
“You don’t get it,” I replied.
“This is for the first time.”
The contents of his head made
a hot mess of the wall behind him.
