Stephen Brust - The Gypsy

"Then why weren't they there today, at the funeral?"

"What?"

The suddenness of his mother's confusion made him realize that she hadn't been talking to him at all; she'd been holding onto him while she talked aloud to herself. Maybe even saying it out loud so the sergeant would hear her say it, and would go back to the station and tell all the other cops what she had said. As soon as the boy thought that, he knew it was true. But it didn't keep him from asking the question again.

"All those people he helped by being a cop. Why weren't any of them there? It was just us and Grandma, and Uncle Ted, and all the other cops. How come all the people he helped weren't there?"

"Well, honey, it wasn't like they all knew him personally. It was what he symbolized that was important. I guess you're a little too young to understand what I mean by that…"

You'll understand when you're older, son. His dad pushing the girl's face away from his crotch, and turning away from her and Giles as he zipped his pants up. The station house locker room had smelled like dirty socks, and his dad's face had been very red. Sergeant Cleary had laughed, then. Now he didn't even smile.

"… but it's like, he wasn't a person to them, he was a policeman. Most of them probably never even knew his name."

"That girl did." Giles glanced up at the sergeant in the rearview mirror. He'd been there, he would know; but he didn't meet Giles's eyes. "Remember her. Sergeant Cleary?"

The Sergeant kept driving, his hands tight on the wheel, his jaw set.

Giles opened his mouth to speak, and at that moment it seemed that he could see and hear what was going to happen. She knew his name, he would say.She called him Ricky, though, not Richard like you do, but she knew his name. And Dad was helping her, really helping her to let her do that to him so she wouldn't have to go to jail, because she was really too young to have to go to jail. So if he helped her and she wasn't in jail, why wasn't she there, the funeral today? And then his mother would turn, and ask him more questions, and Sergeant Cleary would sink lower in his seat. And in the end, after he'd told her all about it, she'd turn and coldly ask the sergeant, who would say he didn't know what the kid was talking about. Then his mom would turn and slap him, slap him so fast and hard that he never even saw her hand, would only remember hitting his head on the shiny upholstery so hard it was like a slap on the other side of his face. And then they wouldn't talk anymore, and they would never, ever talk about the ride home from the funeral and what he had said,and it would almost be like it had never happened.He wouldn't remember it, but he and his mom would never be able to forget it when they talked about his dad's. So they wouldn't talk about him very much. How could he know that?

"What girl?" said his mother sharply.

"Oh, some girl Sergeant Cleary once told me about.A girl dad had to arrest, but then he let go," said Giles.

His mom smiled indulgently. "Richard arrested someone and then let her go? Giles, I don't think policemen are allowed to do things like that. Once they arrest someone, that person has to be punished."

In the front seat. Sergeant Clearly stirred. "It depends, ma'am," he said softly. "Sometimes you give a first offender a break. Sometimes you know they don't really deserve the blot on their record, so you let them off the hook."

His mom looked puzzled for a moment, but didn't say anything else, and Giles sat back, wondering why he had the feeling that something horrible had-just been averted, wondering how he could remember suddenly that Captain Cleary had sat in the front row when he graduated from the academy.

The Coachman looks at the young man seated next to him, and finds the young man staring back at him. "What changed?" asked the policeman, and the Coachman isn't certain how to answer.

"You did," he says at last. "You took a different path."

"But I-" he doesn't complete the sentence. After a moment he says, "A better one?"

"I don't know," says the Coachman. "Better for whom?" Then, "Did you and your mother talk about your dad much?"

"Huh? Sure. All the time… oh."

The horses never tire. Nor does the Coachman. Beyond,back a forever behind them, something that wasn't real,that never should have existed, collapses in on itself. It doesn't leave a hole, for a thousand other possibilities flow in to take its place.

The Coachman sighs.

One left to ask. And the choice he must offer is bitter.This one he dreads. Never has he felt himself such a sly trickster as he does right now. He knows it is not upon him to choose what to offer. Each chooses what to offer himself.But from this, if he could, he would rein aside, would have the horses find a better path.

If the choice were his.

But it isn't.

Each breath was painful. Stepovich couldn't understand it. The night was cool-warm, full of summer city peace, the steady slow clop of the hooves was soothing as a lullaby. Beside him, the Coachman drove silently. That was fine with him. He'd had enough noise and action lately. This peace, this was what he wanted. It had been a long, hard day, full of stress, all blurring behind him. This quietness now,this was good.

The coach was keeping pace with a young couple strolling down the sidewalk. His arm was around her slender waist, and she leaned a dark head on his shoulder. He recognized his younger self, and his wife. No, not his wife, not then. His fiancee. How elegant it had once felt to say that word, how wealthy.He savored it.

Something struck him as slightly odd, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. He pushed the uneasiness out of his mind when he realized he could hear them talking. He remembered the conversation,even, from so very long ago. Funny. It hadn't seemed important, back then. Hadn't seemed like a turning point.

"Honey," she said, "I wouldn't mind working. In fact, I'd love it. You could go to school full-time, then,and be done that much sooner. I think it's the only way we're ever going to get what we want. Mike, I love you. I hate to see you work all day, and then try to study all night. And you know it's making your grades suffer."

The voice of reason. Patient, encouraging. God,how he'd wished for a cigarette, but he'd already given those up for her. No more cigarettes, or pickled eggs, and he'd quit wearing suspenders.

But he didn't want to quit being a cop.

He'd started taking the night school classes to impress her. Gonna be a lawyer, he'd told her. Lied to her, might as well admit it. He'd taken just enough law classes to find out how slippery a subject it was.Justice, that was what he wanted to learn about. And Ed's could teach him more about justice in one righteous bust than any of his night school teachers. He remembered all this. This was the night when he'd told her that he was going to lay out of school, for just one semester, to catch up with himself, so when they got married in a month, he'd have time free to honeymoon with her. Only he'd known then that he was never going back, that he was telling her a lie.

He watched himself lie to her, watched her accept it. Knew he could lean down and shout the truth out,and that his younger self would have to utter it, tell her that he really wanted to be a cop, that he didn't think it was a lowlife job that kept him in permanent contact with lowlife people. He could have made that younger self explain to her just what it meant to him.

He listened to her reply.

"Well. As long as it's not forever. It just scares me so, sometimes, knowing you're out there being a target for every wacko in the city. As long as you're happy, though, I suppose it's okay. And you will go back to school next fall, right?"

Stepovich heard what his younger self had never heard. The lie in her voice. It wasn't okay with her. Never would be. But she had believed it was only temporary, she'd believed she was marrying a future lawyer, not a blue suit and a duty weapon.