-1Hello darlings, sorry it took me a bit, I was down in Santa Cruz meeting JARED LETO! Anyway I thank you for your replies and I hope you enjoy this next part just as much.
Tom cocked his head a look of shock and slight annoyance coming to his features…. "How dare you think you can judge me! How dare you think you know everything about me when you know nothing… How dare you come here and think you are going to tell me how it is…" By the end of his speech Hanson's voice had rose substantially in volume as he cleared his throat making his adam's apple bob. He let his eyes go from the new scrawny man before him back to Booker with a glare in them.
"How dare I?" Mac shook his head and got a little more comfortable in the seat as he spoke slouching himself down into the uncomfortable cushion. "Is it not the truth? Do you not let them wait on you, do you not let them lift you here, and lift you there… do you not soak up their pity because you feel you are deserving? Like everyone should cater to you the poor crippled cop? Like-Like you somehow earned this and now you are so deep in self pity you need them to keep you a float because you cannot do it yourself?"
Tom's teeth pressed hard together as he began to grind them his brows bunching together slowly. "I-"
"I bet you that you have people come over every morning to get you out of bed because your to lazy to learn how to do it yourself…. You have decided not to learn how to live as a handicapped because you've got some fantasy that this whole thing isn't real… that somehow some way you are going to get the magic cure and just get up and walk….WELL that's not going to happen…I'm positive that your apartment is still the same as it was… for the most part there for making it impossible to do anything on your own and forcing you to become a burden on to everyone else… is that what you want officer Hanson, you want to be a washed up has been cop burden?"
Booker rubbed his upper lip with his forefinger and rolled his head from one side to the next. He knew that Mac was being harsh , maybe a little to harsh, but he also knew that this was what needed to happen, that Hanson needed to be slapped in the face and woken up. He needed to get angry, so angry that he would do something about the way his life was going…. He needed to feel any emotion, feel alive and face the future that was given to him… weather he deserved it or not.
"THAT'S ENOUGH!" As if on cue Tom growled as he gripped the sides of his wheelchair hard enough to turn his knuckles white. "YOU DON'T KNOW SHIT ABOUT ME SO WHY DON'T YOU JUST CLOSE YOUR FUCKING MOUTH STAND UP ON YOUR TWO PERFECT FEET AND WALK THE HELL AWAY FROM ME? I DON'T LET PEOPLE PUT PITY ON ME I DON'T IGNORE WHAT HAPPENED AND I'M DEALING WITH IT THE BEST WAY I KNOW HOW!"
"BY RUNNING FROM IT?" Mac held his hand up toward the waitress who was now making her way over to them to tell them to quiet down as he lowered his voice and moved in closer… "How many ramps have you got in your house then Tom? How many lift bars and shower chairs?"
Tom's voice came out like venom now, what in the hell was this guy trying to prove? Who the hell was he and what was he doing here invading on Hanson's life? "None." He answered shortly before crossing his arms over his chest and tilting his chin down almost in a gesture of defiance.
"Well there you go…" Mac nodded, "You are in denial."
"How can I be in denial about something I'm forced to look at and deal with everyday of my life?"
"That is a question only you can answer for yourself Tom."
"Exactly what are you doing here?"
"I'm here to help you….." Mac noted the slight softening of Hanson's voice and demeanor and took that as a step in the right direction… Obviously this Hanson character knew that he was not going to win and that their arguing was only going to take them in circle after circle if it continued…
"No offense Tony, but I don't need your help…"
"That's not how your friends tell it."
"Well that's how I tell it, and my word goes… It is still my life after all… What's left of it anyway."
"Can't you at least give me a shot… for them? They are worried about you ya know? And maybe if you show a little more effort… They could lay off you just a little and you could get some piece of your life back… I know you want that, I know that you need that…"
Tom didn't answer right away he took a sip from the coffee mug in front of him and set it down running his finger along th warm porcelain rim and then finally looked up…. Booker, Mac. Mac Booker he let is eyes wonder from one to the other for a moment before settling on the new comer next to him, "How did it happen?"
"Huh?"
"How did it happen… When you were shot how did they shoot you?" Tom asked again as he picked up his napkin and began to twist it between his fingers….
Mac swallowed hard as a flash of his own accident entered into his mind and then disappeared , he knew this question was coming that he was going to have to answer it but that did not however make it any easier when it finally came…
"Well…. It was a routine drug bust… We had been staking these guys out for about 3 and a half months, you know going undercover playing the part, we decided it was time to make the bust… we had the evidence to convict, we had a nice strong case against these three… Solid, not something you are usually blessed with in Newark New Jersey. We drew our guns … And well… I turned my back for only a second to check on my partner who had the second assailant back up against the wall no more then 5 feet from me… and that's when it happened before I could even realize what was going on… I had checked him I knew he wasn't holding any sort of weapon…. Didn't I?"
Mac swallowed and closed his eyes for a minute playing over the scene in his mind, "I heard the gun cock.. And dove out of the way pulling my partner with me…. It felt cold and sharp like the blade of a knife cutting through your flesh and I knew I had been shot before we even hit the ground behind the trashcans we had dove for. "
"Chaz, my partner he fired back killing one of them and wounding the other two… I remember laying there in the street against the cold asphalt the smog in the air surrounding me as I stared up over my head at the stars that I knew were there, but that I couldn't see… And all I could think was this is it…. I'm going to die right here right now, because some punk dope pusher was quicker than me….. I remember everything up until I was loaded into the ambulance…"
He paused to look up only now and see Hanson staring back at him, his eyes were wide and his bottom lip was resting in his mouth between his teeth, he was listening… really listening because Mac knew he could understand that he had been there, and now he knew that he was not the only one…. And in someway Mac was sure that that brought a sense of comfort to the young officer.
"I came too and I don't remember much for those first few days… But I remember the stale smell that filled my senses and I remember not wanting to open my eyes at first because I was so afraid of what I was going to see… What I was going to have to deal with… So it took me over an hour before I worked up the courage to actually look around me… to see what was to be seen…."
"That must have been rough man…" Booker took out his cigarettes and lit one shaking his head as he too looked to see Hanson completely engulfed in the story being told.
"Shot three rounds into me before I hit the ground, 1 in the arm and 2 in my back missing the spinal cord by only 1.5 centimeters…." He visibly shivered at that point, clearing his throat and wiping the sweat from his brow that had somehow gathered there…. "I remember the doctor telling me how lucky I was… He used that word like I should be happy to have been shot… and I remember the bile rising in my throat he was making me physically sick with his happiness…."
He sighed leaning back in his seat a little more and pausing for a drink of water… "And so I was in the hospital for nearly a month in a half before they declared me both mentally and physically well enough to go home… But it was like everything was different you know? I couldn't shake these feelings of paranoia I couldn't stop thinking and dreaming about the shooting… and I couldn't face the recovery that I was being forced to go through…. Now that I look back I was lucky… I guess.. Lucky for someone who had taken a bullet,… I spent nearly 2 years recovering from that day, 19 months and 13 days for that spent confined to a wheelchair. A contraption that had stripped me of my man hood and replaced it with this weak and incapable human being…."
Hanson looked him up and down slowly a look of disbelief reading from his features…. "wow…" he managed to get out exhaling as he did so…
"So I was luckier than you, from what Booker told me your spinal cord was severed right? Nerve damage?"
Hanson nodded.
"I'm not going to fill you with false hopes… I'm not going to tell you that I know your going to walk again and fairytales like that… You don't need me to you have friends who do that already, I came here because you need someone who has been through what your going through at least one some degree someone who is going to push you, break you and rebuild you into a stronger and more capable person… And when you are ready you are going to tell me about what happened to you that day… Because recovery is 80 percent mental and 20 percent physical…."
Hanson didn't say anything in response he was feeling so many different emotions at the moment, relief… Envy…. Anger… Jealousy… Determination…. So many different things were swimming through his head, he actually in some small way wanted to trust this guy, someone who had been there, had done that and lived to tell about it… even if it wasn't the exact same thing…. But he was a stranger, Hanson didn't know him… Booker did, which was no where near good enough to give him high points on the trust scale…
"So…." MacCann cleared his throat interrupting Tom's thoughts and regaining his attention. "I've taken a job at the chapel… I talked to my captain last night and he called Fuller…. And Fuller has given me the go ahead to transfer down here for the time being…"
"You need a place to stay bro?" Booker cocked his eyebrow and tilted his head, "It will be just like old times…"
"You two use to be roomies?"
"Yeah… During out academy days…."
"Oh lord is this going to be like living with two Bookers in my life?"
"Are you kidding me Hanson? There is only one of me, you should know my now that I'm a one of a kind original model… accept no substitutes…"
"Well that's reassuring…" Hanson frowned a little noting the first thing that Mac had said and playing it back again in his mind…. "So- that makes you my replacement I guess then?"
"well-" Mac shrugged, "For the time being I guess you could put it like that…"
Hanson felt an emptiness fill his insides and nodded, sure… he was stuck on desk duty, he was paralyzed… but a replacement? He knew this day was coming… but for a moment anyway it stung… deep and hard. "Oh… Well… That's cool, your going to love the chapel…" He smirked as painful as it was to do so…. "But Jude is definitely going to have to make this one over don't you think Book?"
"I'm sure she can work something out…." Booker smiled evilly.
"Hey I didn't sign on for any makeovers!"
"And I didn't sign on for some scrawny pantywaist from New Jersey to come down here and interrupt my life…. So now we are even."
Booker stood and looking at the two men chuckled to himself, this is going to be quite interesting…. He told himself before heading to pay the check.
Be honest and tell me what you thought, I'm not to sure how I felt about it… I kept the facts as close to the original as I could while shifting some to make them fit with the story a little more.