Chapter 23

Sonny walked into the hospital room, and took a seat in a chair by the bed.

Looking at the man lying in the bed, he asked, “How are you doing, this morning?”

“Get out of here,” Mike said.

Sonny said, “I know that you’ve gotten some bad news, but you can’t let that hold you down. You’ve got to get on with your life.”

“Just what I need ... advice from an asshole,” Mike said bitterly.

“If you weren’t a cop, I’d take your ass outside, and kick the shit out of it,” Sonny said without anger.

“That would be a real challenge,” Mike said sarcastically. “I bet you’d like beating up a one armed man.”

“It wouldn’t be a challenge at all, and I doubt it would be much fun. I do think it’s damned near necessary, though,” Sonny said.

“Why?”

Sonny said, “Sitting there feeling all sorry for yourself isn’t going to take care of business. You’ve still got a wife who loves you. Your kids still need you. There are bills to pay, and things that have to be done around the house. How many arms you have, doesn’t change that.”

“How am I going to do any of that stuff, with just one arm?” Mike asked.

“There’s a lot of stuff that you can’t do, but there is even more stuff that you can do. That’s what you should be concentrating on. You should be looking at what you can do,” Sonny said.

He looked at the man in the bed, knowing that his words were falling on deaf ears. Mike had lost more than an arm. He had lost his identity as a police officer.

He sighed and said, “You’re not going to listen to me.”

“Why should I?” Mike asked.

He blamed a lot of his condition on Sonny. He had been on the trail of the men who had come to visit Sonny in the hospital the first time he had been shot when he had asked Sonny to come down to the station. He was pretty sure that they were responsible for the escalation of violence that led to him getting shot.

“Maybe it’s because I’m one of the few honest men left in this god forsaken town,” Sonny said.

“You? Honest? Don’t blow smoke up my ass,” Mike said.

Shaking his head, Sonny said, “As far as I can tell, I’m one of the few people left here who will tell it like it is. I’ll call a spade a spade. I’ll tell you flat out what needs to be done without regard to what you think is allowed. I really don’t care what the people here think of me and my ideas.”

“You’re an asshole,” Mike said.

“Me? I’m not the one who chased his wife out of his room. I saw your wife sitting down the hallway crying her eyes out. That woman loves you, and you don’t seem to care,” Sonny said. He leaned over towards Mike and added, “If anyone in this room is an asshole, it’s you.”

“Why do you even care?” Mike asked bitterly.

Sonny leaned back in his chair. It was obvious that Mike’s emotions were all over the place. One minute he was bitter and then the next minute he was angry. There was an undercurrent of depression and despair.

He answered, “I didn’t respect you at all when I first met you. I thought that you weren’t doing your job. Then I realized that you were doing all that you could, under the circumstances. You really did care about protecting the public. The problem was that the public didn’t want your protection. That didn’t stop you from doing all you could. You were kind of a heroic figure, battling evil without any support. I probably shouldn’t say this, but I actually like you.”

“Look at where it got me,” Mike said.

“I know exactly where it got you. In case you have forgotten, I was lying in the bed next to yours until you changed rooms,” Sonny said. “All I’m saying is that you have to decide where you are going to go to from here.”

“I’ll be going home and sitting around like a useless piece of trash. I’m damaged goods and nobody wants me,” Mike said getting angry again.

Sonny gave a snort of disgust. He said, “That’s where you’re wrong. Your wife wants you. You’ve got to decide what’s important to you and start working to protect it.”

“She deserves more than half a man,” Mike said.

Sadly, Sonny shook his head. He said, “From what I’ve seen of Los Angeles, there aren’t many men here who even qualify to be half a man. You’re head and shoulders above a bunch of sniveling cowards who hide behind others, and then blame them when things don’t work out right.”

“Well,” Mike said.

“If you chase off your wife, she’s liable to marry some jerk who won’t even try to protect her. I figure that even with just one arm, you would still pick up a baseball bat and try to take out anyone who breaks into your house or threatens her. You wouldn’t sit cowering in a closet, trying to get through on 911 calling for help while your wife is getting raped. You might not succeed in saving her, but you would try. From what I’ve seen around here that makes you one of the few men left in this city,” Sonny said.

“You’re right,” Mike said.

Sonny looked at the door and said, “I’ve got to be leaving now. It’s time for me to check out of this place.”

“You’re wrong about one thing though,” Mike said.

“What?”

Mike said, “There are a lot of good people left in this city.”

Sonny said, “Maybe, but I suggest that you take a trip around this country. Visit some of the small towns when you get out of here. Meet some people and talk to them. You might not like what you hear, at first, but I think you’ll grow to appreciate them. You’ll meet a lot of folks who react to adversity by hitching up their pants and getting to work. You’ll meet a lot of people who will step in to help others in trouble without being asked. After a couple of months of talking to real men and women who know how to take care of themselves, you won’t have such a good impression of the folks around here.”

Mike said, “I might do that.”

“Take your wife with you. The two of you just might find a home where people appreciate what you’ve got to offer the community,” Sonny said.

The fact that a police officer had been wounded during a drive by shooting hadn’t made it to the front page of the newspaper. The front page had been filled with the story of the gang getting destroyed. Sonny was sure the day when assaults on police were no longer news, was on the horizon. He hoped that Mike would be around when that happened.

He turned to leave and then added, “It has been nice knowing you. Have a good life.”

“Thanks,” Mike said.

Sonny stepped out the room, where he was met by Donny.

After they were a couple of steps away from the door, Sonny said, “I couldn’t leave without talking to him.”

“Did you get everything taken care of in there?” Donny asked while gesturing at the door of Mike’s hospital room.

“No. I did what I could, though,” Sonny said shaking his head.

He knew that Mike was wallowing in misery. It would be a while before the man took charge of his life and moved on to something else. He hoped that the man didn’t alienate all of the people around him before getting his act together.

“That’s all you can do,” Donny said.

He watched how his brother was walking. Sonny was moving slow and it was obvious that he was still in quite a bit of pain. Real life wasn’t quite like the police shows where a man was shot in one episode and then was all right for the next one. Sonny wouldn’t be back in true form for months.

Sonny said, “He grew up wanting to be a cop and became a cop. After more than twenty-five years of being a cop, he can’t be a cop. The poor guy has lost his identity as a result of a couple ounces of lead. What do you do when you can’t be what you’ve always have been?”

“That’s a good question,” Donny said.

He wondered how he would deal with that situation although it wasn’t the first time the thought had crossed his mind. A man didn’t ride a bull without knowing that he could get seriously hurt. There were a lot of former rodeo folks living their lives in wheelchairs.

Pausing and turning his whole body to look back at the door, Sonny said, “He’s going to be bitter about this for a long time.”

“I can’t blame him. He’s been shot,” Donny said.

“He’s going to be bitter about the wrong thing,” Sonny said.

Sonny started heading back towards his room. Donny walked beside him while pausing occasionally to look inside the rooms along the hallway. There were a lot of sick people in that hospital.

“What do you mean?”

“He’s blaming me because the gang violence increased,” Sonny said. “He’s blaming the wrong group.”

“It was the gang that was doing the shooting,” Donny said shaking his head.