"I hate her. Plain and simple I hate her and there is nothing she can do to make it up to me. I don't need her, I don't want her and she is nothing to me." Pause, drink, scoff.
"Ok, try again. I HATE her...she is a self-righteous hypocrite who doesn't even appreciate that I saved her LIFE! She cares only for advancing her career and lets her new gold shield go straight to her head!" Drink. Nod.
"They think I can't shoot? They think I can't hit that target and pass their little test? Well I can"…drink… "I CAN and I think I will show them right now".
He stumbles from his bar stool and throws down a fifty. "I think that outta cover me for tonight, see you tomorrow."
"Yeah, night Mo, thanks for stopping by."
With a salute to no one in particular he is out the door and on the street, his face rebuffed by the frigid wind.
"I can shoot…Bang BANG!" He motions his hands into little guns as if her were five again. He aims at a trashcan, a taxi and a light. "Pow, it never even saw me coming!"
Bosco stumbled down the block slowly but deliberately. He could find his way to the precinct if he were blind, probably if he were dead, which he almost was a little less than a year ago.
"I am almost died for her" he thought, the irony of it striking him like a cruel joke. "I saw those gunmen, heard her cry and dove to cover her without a moments notice, without the slightest hesitation. I wonder if her betrayal of me came with the same ease, the same reflex motion."
It was with this righteous indignation, this holier-than-thou attitude that Bosco climbed the steps to the 55 and swung the doors open wide. The house was always so quite at this time of night. It was about 2:15, the rookie skels had already been busted and the true thugs don't come out until 3:00. Bosco saw the top of Lieu's head through the windows of roll call; he was surrounded by a few of the late shift cops. He assumed they were watching some tape of a local surveillance team or perhaps someone doing it with the captain's daughter in an RMP. Whatever it was they seemed glued to the screen.
He fumed his way up the stairs the entire time going over his planned speech in his head: "Boss, I know you want me out there and I want to be out there. Faith has NO IDEA what she is talking about and to prove it to you I will go take the test right now! I don't belong in lock-up and I certainly don't need the help of some ex-partner, ex-friend who seems to forget the indebtedness people are normally accustomed to giving to someone who saves their life!" He shook his head with enthusiasm at the little bit he'd just put together and congratulated himself for thinking on his feet. He planned to march to his locker and get out his gun as soon as he finished for dramatic effect.
But in the next few minuets Bosco did little marching. He reached the top of the stairs only to hear muffled cries coming from the t.v. screen. His line of vision was unobstructed as he took the extra second to focus on what waseveryone waswatching so intently.It was Faith, covered in blood and leaning over what looked like a hunk of butcher's meat. She was crying and screaming and administering CPR to the seemingly lifeless log laying beneath her. She looked so upset that Bosco almost lost it right there, his dinner, the whiskey, everything in his system simply at the sight of her hysteria.
"What happened tonight?" he thought in horror as he watched her pump up and down, up and down, and breathe for the bloody mess…"I have to get to her, I have to help her."
Then suddenly he knew. The tape before him was not from tonight, rather it was from a few months back, almost ten full months ago when he lay shot on the hospital room floor. From the angle of the tape it looked to be the security camera present in the waiting room corner. Bosco had seen the camera a million times, even reviewed tapes of it in theft or assault cases but it never occurred to him after that night.
"Oh my God" he said out loud but barely audible. Lieu turned his head just in time to see Bosco double over with his hands on his knees as he began retching on the floor. The Lieutenant jumped to his feet and rushed to remove the tape, but not before Bosco watched Faith drag his limp and lifeless body from the room with a bright red blood trail marking the path.
The next few minuets were a bit of a blur to Bosco. The boss had pushed him to the bench behind him, and he was given a cold towel to place over his face. Some rookie was cleaning his vomit as the Boss got right in his face. "Bosco, what the hell are you doing here? You were never supposed to see this!"
Bosco just shook his head and began to laugh. "See what?" he seethed, "See WHAT? That she saved my life?" He was screaming now as he started again: "All this time I have been on a high horse, been telling her she OWED me, that I was the hero in this story when all along she is the one…she is the one who breathed for me and kept my heart going when the others would have left me for dead? And no one told me?" he spoke again on the verge of tears: "No one told me."
It was a full minuet before he spoke again. "Did you see her face? Did you see her clothes? She was covered, COVERED in my blood. Why? Why would she do that?"
The Lieutenant stood stark still. "Bosco, she wanted you to make it, she needed you to make it".
Bosco looked up, tears filling his eyes as he slowly stood and brushed past the small crowd around him.
"Where are you going Bosco?" came the stern and gruff voice of his Boss.
"I gotta see her, I gotta…go". His whisper was again barely audible as Bosco was down the stairs and out the doors to greet the crisp air. No one moved to follow.
He took a deep breath and almost lost it one last time as he turned to his right and started jogging up the block. As he ran he replayed the images from the screen in his head. All he could hear was Faith's cries and whimpers, her shouts for help and the panic in her voice. He felt so awful, like such a jerk. "I shouldn't be surprised" he thought. "The most upset I have ever seen Faith in my life and not only am I notthere to help her but I am the CAUSE of her problem. Way to go Bosco, way to go." He bowed his head and seconds later his jog quickened and he was practically sprinting up the street to Faith's apartment in record speed.
