Paul Cleave - Joe Victim

Every day since losing his job he’s still felt like a cop. It’s annoying. Every day for the first two weeks he woke up and wanted to put on the badge and ended up putting on sweatpants and a jacket and hung around the house all day helping his wife and being a better dad to his kids. Every night he went to sleep seeing the woman he shot and hating that he had to make that decision and knowing he’d make the same one again. The third week he worked. His new job doesn’t require him to shoot people.

This is now his second week on the job. The drive out to the prison is miserable. It was raining when he woke up, raining when he ate breakfast, raining when he got the phone call to come out here, and even though the forecast for tomorrow is supposed to be fine, he’s sure it’ll be raining then too. The window wipers make it all clear before the rain turns it back into a blur. There are paddocks full of cows standing in mud, sheep wearing drenched woolen jerseys, and still there are farmers out there making the circle of life happen, making food, making milk, making money, driving around in their tractors as the rain keeps on coming. The grass shoulders off the side of the road are flooded. Small shrubs are under water. Birds are flapping around in it. The window wipers are struggling to cope. Every few miles there are warning billboards about not driving tired, or speeding, or driving drunk. One says The faster you go the bigger the mess. Superman would disagree. The faster he went the more people he saved. He once went so fast he went back in time and fixed a lot of messes before they began. Christchurch needs somebody like him.

A truck coming toward him hits a flooded section of road, splashing water up over Schroder’s windshield-more than the wipers can immediately handle-so for two seconds he can’t see a thing, a scary two seconds when you’re driving blindly on a motorway. He puts his foot on the brake and slowly presses it down until the windscreen clears. When it does, the view doesn’t change. Just more rain, more gray sky.

He has the radio on as he drives. He’s listening to a national talk radio station. People are phoning in and the DJ is making conversation. It’s current events, and the current event people want to talk about is the death penalty. It’s been ongoing for the last few months. It’s the national debate. People are for it. Other people are against it. Emotions are strong. Those for it hate those against it. Same goes for the other side. There is no middle ground. No sitting on the fence. People can’t understand other people’s point of view. It’s dividing the country, dividing neighbors, dividing family and friends. Schroder, personally, he’s for it. He sees no problem dishing out a little of the same pain that killers have inflicted on this city. Half the people phoning in to the radio station share his opinion. Half don’t. Either way they want to be heard.

“It’s not about justice,” somebody says, a guy by the name of Stewart who is phoning in from Auckland, where, according to Stewart, the rain is of biblical proportions. “It’s about punishment,” he says, which is pretty biblical too, come to think of it.

It’s a twenty-minute drive to the prison that takes thirty-five in this weather. He hears a dozen different viewpoints. The DJ is trying to be impartial. Schroder could flick the dial and hear the same debate on about six other stations. The good news is that there is going to be a referendum. A vote is taking place. For the first time that Schroder can remember, the government is going to listen to the people. At least they are saying they will-after all, it’s an election year. The leading question to the prime minster and to those running against him is: Will the next government follow the will of the people? And the answer is yes. That means, technically, by the end of the year the death penalty could be back in place, if that’s what the people want. He wonders what direction that will take the country. Back into the dark ages? Or into a future where people aren’t killing each other as often?

Hard to know.

But depending on the vote, he may just get a chance to find out.

Schroder turns the radio off. Next week, when Joe Middleton’s trial begins, will be a nightmare. He’s heard a rumor that the prosecution is going to ask for the death penalty if indeed the death penalty becomes law. There are going to be people outside the courthouse. They’re going to be carrying signs. Pro-death. Anti-death. Victim rights. Human rights.

The prison comes up on the left. He slows down and takes the turnoff, a speeding van almost rear-ending him, and a minute later he comes to a guard post. He shows his identification to a guard with the same amount of humor as a tumor. Up ahead is the entrance. Beyond that construction workers are assembling another wing of the prison. Even in the rain they’re working, eager to get the job done, eager to make more room for more criminals. Whoever said crime doesn’t pay also should have added that crime is a billion-dollar industry with all that it touches-new prisons, lawyers, funerals, insurances. It’s the only thing booming. Another car pulls in behind him into the parking lot. He parks and sits still for a few moments, wishing he had an umbrella, but knowing he probably wouldn’t use it even if he did. He looks over at the car parking next to him. A woman, all alone. She kills the engine and he can’t see her clearly enough to know what she’s doing, but he’s been around enough women to know she’s probably putting something into her handbag or getting something out, a simple job that can take his wife five minutes to do since her handbag is like a time capsule dating back to before they met. She opens the car door. She’s pregnant. From the looks of the way she’s trying to squeeze herself out of the car, she got pregnant sometime about a year ago.

“You need a hand there?” he asks, getting out of his car, and he has to almost shout to be heard over the rain. Before he’s even finished the sentence he’s soaking wet, and so is she, only just her face and belly at this stage.

“Thank you,” she says, and she reaches up and takes his hand. Rather than him pulling her up, she almost pulls him back into the car, and he almost lets her since it’s drier in there. He strengthens his back, switches on the stomach muscles he’s slowly losing, and pulls. She stumbles forward and has to wrap her arms around him, and he almost topples, grabbing at the car door to stay balanced.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry about that,” she says, pulling away from him.

“You picked a hell of a day to visit somebody,” he says.

She laughs, a very sweet laugh that her husband or boyfriend must love hearing. “You think today is going to be any better than tomorrow?”

“Supposed to be sunny,” he says, “but maybe the snow they picked for last week might finally arrive.” He’s curious as to who she’s visiting. Maybe her boyfriend or husband is locked up out here. He doesn’t ask.

“Can you. . I hate to ask, but would you please grab my handbag for me?”

“Sure,” he says. She steps aside and he reaches into the car and grabs her handbag off the passenger seat. “No umbrella?”

She shakes her head. “It’s only rain,” she says.

He closes the door for her. “Torrential rain,” he says, and there’s no point in hurrying now, he can’t get any wetter.

She smiles. “I like it. The rain is. . I don’t know, romantic, I guess.” She breathes in deeply. “And that smell,” she says. “I love that smell.”

Schroder breathes in deeply. All he can smell is wet grass.

They walk up to the main doors together, the woman has her hand on her stomach the entire way, and he figures she should be keeping that hand much lower, ready to catch what is surely going to fall out of her at any second. He opens the door for her.