Precious Metals
“Garrity, you’ve got hospital duty.”
Garrity nodded at his sergeant and grabbed his roll-out bag off of the table in front of him. Any of the other officers on the shift would have guessed that he didn’t mind getting the shitty assignments, and they would have been right. Eight hours and fifteen minutes if he was guarding some prisoner at Memorial or sweating his ass off running from call to call in the hot summer sun. It really didn’t matter anymore. A paycheck every twenty-eight days either way.
Shotgun, riot helmet, extra ammunition, and no contraband or new dents in the aging Ford. He signed the book so the officer coming off-duty could go home and stopped by his personal car and grabbed a paperback he had started reading at his second job the night before. A war novel, better than most, but he hadn’t read one yet that got it right. No one would read it if they did, he imagined. Most people wanted to read stories that had a happy ending. If he was lucky, whoever he had to guard would be asleep or heavily medicated and he could watch Sports Center on their television. He took the book because he wasn’t a very lucky person.
Garrity made a stop on the way to the hospital and grabbed a Styrofoam cup instead of using his regular mug that hung under the television and filled the cup to the brim. In English subtitles on Al Jezeera Garrity read about a helicopter that the Taliban claimed they had shot down. He lingered as long as he could and when he started to leave Isaac told Garrity there was no charge for the strong coffee, just as he did every day. Garrity stuck to his habit of putting two bucks on the counter on his way out.
“Salam alaykum,” his friend called out to him as he walked out the door.
“And peace to you also,” Garrity said.
Garrity fixed the lid so he could drink the coffee while he drove and scalded his tongue with the first sip. Hospital duty meant one less day on the street. He was over the hump, but still had a long time to go. He didn’t want to work weekends and holidays, birthdays and anniversaries for another decade.
When he was in Homicide he’d rotated through on-call status every third weekend, but the parking lot at the headquarters building was empty every Christmas he’d ever worked. Detectives didn’t have to wear stifling hot Kevlar vests under their suits, and everyone assumed you were smarter than the other officers if you worked robbery, homicide or property crimes. He knew from firsthand experience that wasn’t always the case. Still, he was working what slim connections he still had to get an interview for an upcoming vacancy on the burglary squad.
The parking spot near the entrance to the ER that was marked for police cars only was occupied by a taxi so he parked in the deck and and walked in through the entrance to the emergency department. Doctors and nurses ignored him as he threaded his way through the maze of floors and corridors, all of them too busy with their own crisis to notice another uniform.
He found the room, read the post orders, and signed the ledger. He didn’t recognize the female officer he relieved, and that was the rule rather than the exception. When he’d been hired the department had seemed like a big extended family, or high school, where if you didn’t know everyone you at least knew of them. Now most of the other cops were strangers, even the ones he worked with every day.
She looked at his nametag, signed the clipboard and handed it to him. Then she left without saying anything.
The post orders specified that the duty captain was to be notified if the suspect made any incriminating statements. He’d waived his Miranda rights but had not confessed to the killing he’d been charged with. Officers were not to question the prisoner, but were required to make notes of any statements he made. No visitors, no phone calls. The suspect had been admitted as a John Doe to keep any associates from stopping by if they were so inclined. Boring duty, but sometimes boring was alright.
“Nobody’s done that the whole time I been in here,” the man said to him when Garrity checked to make sure the prisoner was still cuffed to the hospital bed. The starched, white hospital sheets made him seem even blacker than he actually was.
“Just doing my job,” Garrity said.
How many times had he hidden behind that in the past twenty years? The response was automatic now.
“I know, I know,” the man said. “I wasn’t accusing you of nothin’, I was just making conversation. You’re the oldest one that’s guarded me yet.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
Garrity didn’t really care, but it didn’t look like anything was wrong with the man. His long, braided hair was past his shoulders and he had a tattoo of someone’s name across one side of his neck.
“Kidney stones. Ain’t that some shit? I’m trippin’ on morphine, best high I’ve had in a long time, courtesy of the taxpayers. If they would have waited one more day before they locked me up I would have had to up to the VA and have them take care of me.”
Garrity shook his head and didn’t say anything else. At least he knew where some of his tax money went; keeping a homicide suspect comfortable while he peed through a coffee filter until he could be transferred to the medical ward at the jail.
“What’s that?” the suspect asked him. He was pointing with his free hand at a metal pin that was under Garrity’s badge. “Seen lots of cops, never seen one of those.”
Garrity didn’t want to answer. He wanted to watch Sports Center or read his book until it was time to go to his other job, but maybe the conversation would lead somewhere. He needed something to get noticed by the selection boards if he ever wanted to make detective again.
“Purple heart,” Garrity said.
Every day when he put on his costume he saw the medal and remembered the night he’d earned it and lost a friend. A long time ago that seemed like yesterday.
“I got me one of those, from the Army.February 26th, 1991.”
Garrity was walking toward a chair next to the door and stopped. His anniversary, his kid’s birthdays, the day he’d lost a partner. Dates on a calendar to everyone but him. He turned around and walked back to the hospital bed.
“What happened on that day?” Garrity asked.
“Got my ass shot saving two ungrateful Jarheads, that’s what happened.”
Garrity looked at the man in front of him. The television was on, but he couldn’t hear it anymore. Like every cop he’d ever known, he was suspicious and unbelieving, pessimistic and Republican. Someone had told this guy, but no one else knew. He’d never told his wife. Only his gunner Bobby, who he hadn’t talked to in years, knew the whole story.
“Al Jahra?”
“No, about thirty clicks south.”
Garrity touched a button on the hospital bed and the television screen went black. “What happened?”
“Helicopter went down. We was lost, separated from the convoy after a HMMNT hit a mine and we hooked up and pulled it out of the way. We saw the bird go down and drove over to see if anyone had survived. Two Marine’s were shooting pistols at a squad of Iraqi’s when we got there. The ragheads were pissed off about all their friends that had been killed on Highway Eighty and were gonna’ take out on those guys until we got there.”
Garrity rolled up his sleeve and looked at the long, thin scar that started at his left wrist and wound its way up to his elbow. There were thirteen titanium pins and screws hidden under the scar. The last day of February, 1991 was the last time Garrity had ever flown a helicopter. The murder suspect pulled the thin hospital gown up to his thigh and Garrity saw two round marks that looked like burns a cigarette would make or knots on a skinny tree trunk.
“Through and through, no bones. They sent me back to the trucks a week later.”
Garrity rolled his sleeve back down and buttoned the cuff. The man on the bed turned the television back on.
“How’d you get your purple heart?” he asked.
“I got shot twelve years ago. Guy killed my partner.”
It was the same answer Garrity gave to his friends at church and anyone else who asked. He never told anyone about his fiancée bleeding out in his arms while he held her for the last time. His wife didn’t know the whole story. He never told anyone how glad he’d been when the autopsy had determined it was his round that had killed the suspect. No one in the department ever knew they had been engaged.
There was a Styrofoam carafe of ice water on a table beside the bed, and Garrity poured some water into his empty coffee cup and swished it around. It was so cold it made his teeth hurt when he drank it. He threw the empty cup in the wastebasket.
“I got my first purple heart when my helicopter was shot down, in February of 1991. The 26th.” The disbelief in the man’s eyes matched the way Garrity had felt. “You rammed the Iraqi jeep with your tow-truck and you and your partner jumped out and started sprayin’ and prayin’. We had to take cover to keep from getting hit by your rounds. Two truck drivers took out a squad of Republican Guard and saved two Jarhead’s lives.”
“I’ll be dammed,” the man whispered.
Garrity closed the door to the hospital room, and they swapped stories like two lost brothers. He was sitting on the edge of the bed when a nurse came in and broke the spell. She checked the IV bag and didn’t speak to either man.
“What happened?” Garrity asked when she left the room. The man’s eyes dropped to his chest.
“Nothin’ seemed like it mattered when I got back. I mean, it was just so real over there, you know? I drank too much, lost my license, and got locked up a few times. Lots of fights. The girl who waited on me the whole time I was over there finally had enough and left with our kid. Purple Heart, honorable discharge, and I couldn’t get a job at McDonalds. Too much pride for that. I started runnin’ with my cousin and before long I was usin’ as much as I was selling.
Garrity nodded. He remembered how hard life had been was when he got back. It took him a year before he could sleep for more than fours hours in a row.
“You know, sometimes it’s like it was over there. It’s real. Like when I shot that dude, it was real, you know? Like shootin’ those ragheads. It was either him or me. I didn’t feel nothin’. I just pulled the trigger and watched him drop. Just like over there.”
The door opened again, and two men in khaki’s and wrinkled sport coats walked in. They both had badges clipped to their belts and pistols bulged beneath their jackets. The last echoes of the confession were still in the air.
“We’ll take him from here. He’s getting discharged in a few minutes,” one of the detectives said. “Go ahead and take those cuffs off of him. They’re going to make him ride down in a wheelchair.”
Garrity fished a key out of his shirtpocket and unlocked the handcuffs. When the man’s hand was free, Garrity grabbed it and squeezed it hard.
“Thank-you,” Garrity said. One of the detectives followed him out into the hall.
“It looked like you had a pretty good rapport with the guy. He say anything to you?
Garrity shook his head and walked away.
