 FIC: "Untitled" ("How Could This Happen to Me?") (1/1)
Where was he? He felt strange -- groggy, dizzy, disoriented. Disconnected. The night was dark. Around him, the air was a thick, smoky consistency. Above him, strange, somewhat florescent motes floated free, like the diffused beam of a streetlight shining through a scummy fog. "Jimbo?" he said aloud, remembering his partner Jim Street was nearby. Jim Street, stalwart and stoic S.W.A.T. officer and his friend for more than five years . . . but no, not his partner. Jim Street hadn't been his partner or his friend for months. Why had he forgot that? Why had he believed Jim was here with him? Because he was. He could see him now, the man he had known better than anyone in his life, the person who had known him best of all. There he was, Jim Street, on his knees, his head bent to the ground. Was he hurt? Was he wounded? Why was his forehead pressed into the dirt? As if in answer, Street gave a strange whimper. He reached out and spoke again. "Jim . . ." His hand floated past Street's bent form without making contact. There was no sign he had heard or noticed him. "Wha?" He tried to steady himself. He must be hallucinating, but there, beneath him, he saw the crumpled body. His own. "What the fuck?" he shouted. "No way!" It was a cop's ultimate nightmare -- his own death. Every officer imagined, though he might try to deny it, that moment when reality and fate would combine to snuff out the spark animating his heart and mind. But he wasn't a cop, was he? He had ceased to be that long ago. He was one of the bad guys. He had fucked up. In an instant he remembered what had happened; he had taken on S.W.A.T. with his own gang of malcontents, and their get-rich-quick scheme had ultimately been thwarted by Jim Street and his team. He hadn't believed his plan could fail, it had been so well laid -- as well laid as he and Jim had been on those nights they flashed their fresh L.A.P.D. haircuts and flexed their biceps at their favorite stewardess watering hole. But evidently it hadn't been good enough. What did that little dude on 'Fantasy Island' always say? "De plane, de plane!" The hijacked jet they had landed on the Sixth Street Bridge in downtown L.A. as a getaway vehicle had been grounded by the good guys. And the only thing left to him had been to try to run . . . to try to run while being chased by his old buddy and former partner, Jim Street. What a clash of S.W.A.T. titans that had been! Somewhere inside, even in his incorporeal state, he could feel the physical pain of their encounter exacerbated by the horrible truth of the result: Jim Street had killed him. No, I can't die this way, he thought, suddenly desperate. Above him the filtered light was becoming brighter, confusing him further. This can't be happening, his mind insisted. There must be a way to undo it! Jim Street slowly stood up, his face a contorted mask of pain and grief. "Jimmy! Jimmy, I'm sorry, brother. Please, look at me. Listen to me!" But all Street seemed to see was the broken body lying next to the railroad track. And while he watched, Street stiffened his spine and started to walk, haltingly at first. How would Jim Street be able to deal with having killed his former partner, regardless of how much he deserved it? "It wasn't your fault," he whispered, willing Street to hear him. Then he started to shout, "Don't go, Jimbo! Wait!" What was Street thinking? Where was he going? Funny, but although he couldn't connect with Street, it wasn't at all difficult to follow him. Without even trying, he moved with Street, floating above him, up to the Sixth Street Bridge, alive with activity, full of men and cars, lights and noise. A wagon waited as a body bag was being loaded inside. The vest lying on top of the bag read 'McCabe.' Oh, shit. T.J. McCabe had bought it. He had probably caught a bullet, one fired by a former friend, someone who had trusted him or even loved him -- at least liked him a little. T.J. had never really believed he was loved or trusted; he was always trying too hard to be cool to notice that nobody cared if he were. It had been easy to convince T.J. to go along with the plot to take the billionaire French crime lord out of the hands of his S.W.A.T. buddies -- to turn rogue. T.J. had no ax to grind, but he certainly was seduce-able when the prospect of millions of dollars served as the gilded carrot. T.J. was dead, and it was his fault, wasn't it? T.J. had always admired him and been moved by him. It hadn't even taken the full force of his personality to make the morally amorphous T.J. McCabe into his pawn. But if T.J. were dead, then where was he now? Why was he not floating here, as well, drawn toward the light? He looked around for a sign of the S.W.A.T. officer, but the night's ghosts were only memories of the past, his past. The darkness around him held familiar scenes, superimposed on the shimmering mist like home movies; there he was with Jim Street, being welcomed on the team. There they were, rappelling from a 'copter, squatting with their weapons, covering one another as they stormed through danger. There they were, ultimately staring one another down in the locker room as their relationship shattered. Side by side, back to back, face to face -- the closest of partners, the best of friends, the most bitter enemies. And there on the bridge was Street, the real Street, walking up to his new team leader, blood and grime streaked on his face. The rear door of the wagon closed on the body of T.J. McCabe. The busy hive of humans on the bridge didn't seem to notice, just as they were oblivious to him, hovering nearby. He was alone in the dusky night, waiting to move on. McCabe had already gone. "Don't you guys know this is bullshit?" he shouted. "This can't happen to me! I was the best! You all knew it." But nobody cared. They hadn't cared that he was a great cop, an intrepid officer, a foolishly courageous bastard. They had all turned on him . . . even Street. Hadn't that been the cause of all this tragedy? Street looked like an animated corpse out of 'Night of the Living Dead.' There was no sign of the often funny, irreverent buddy he had once known, the surfer and the dreamer. Street, too, had somehow been destroyed on this night, down on the tracks below. But he had been shackled to the earth, confined by destiny and duty. Jim Street was the unlucky one. He struggled for a moment to hold on to something . . . to reach out one last time to Jim Street. "I'm sorry, Jimbo. I fucked up, and I'm sorry. It's too late to fix it, but I'll wait for you when it's your turn," he promised. Don't make me wait too long, he finished silently. In Street's dark, fathomless eyes he thought he saw a glimmer of awareness. Mentally untying the final tether holding him to his old life, he rose toward the light like a runaway balloon escaping the chubby fingers of an unsuspecting child. If he turned back now, he knew it was the face of Jim Street he'd see, little boy now lost, grown man riddled with remorse -- and he might be tempted to fight to stay and try to offer some comfort. There was no turning back. Somewhere nearby he sensed someone else. He squinted, not sure at first what he was seeing; but there, immersed in the light, was Michael Boxer -- Boxer, the man he himself had shot tonight. This was too much -- worse even than accepting the responsibility for McCabe. Boxer was an all-around good guy, an upstanding citizen and well-liked S.W.A.T. officer who had a reputation for fair play. Boxer had never done anything to deserve such an untimely exit other than try to faithfully serve his city. He couldn't let this happen. "No, Boxer! Don't go, man. You've got a family to think about. You've got too much to live for! Fight it, buddy! Turn back!" Boxer's pleasantly handsome face was clear to him, surrounded by a halo of white, suddenly smiling with recognition. "Get the fuck out of here, Boxer. It's not the right time!" Confused for a moment, Boxer turned and looked longingly toward the light. Then he seemed to shrug and start a slow descent back to the land of the living. Good. Maybe he had made up for one of his sins, at least. For the first time he felt the anger and outrage at his fortune fade away. Floating higher above the bridge, the light becoming whiter and more blinding, he seemed to be drawn away from the scene below and his connection to it. The faces and forms got smaller and stranger, surreal, like characters in a video game. The memories faded, along with his final ties to them -- even to those he shared with Jim Street. So . . . Now it was time to go. Time to fly into the light, to find out the answer to the universal question of what comes next. The weariness and disappointment of the past several months seemed to lift from his shoulders, and for the first time in ages he felt a sense of hope and good humor. He was up for the adventure, as he had always been. He had cashed in his chips, bit the dust, bought the farm. He was ready to shuffle off this fucking mortal coil, to paraphrase Shakespeare. It was finally time to be fitted for his wings, if there were such things. Eventually it happened to everyone. "Okay, Universe," he said, setting himself free, "let's get it on!" Back on earth, Brian Gamble was dead. The End
"Untitled" by Simple Plan I open my eyes, And I can't stand the pain. I made my mistakes! Everybody's screaming, So I try to hold onto a time when nothing mattered, I made my mistakes! I made my mistakes!
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