Chapter 16- Crack:
This is Chapter 16 of 16: You can navigate Chapters here
A shot rang out from the building behind them.
Jepsen had stopped to shake the hands of a group of people next to Mark’s old truck when the bullet whipped past him. Everyone near flinched instinctively.
“Goddamit,” Jepsen shouted. His security detail encircled him and rushed him to the armored SUV that had been trailing his path.
Another bullet followed. This one went through the shoulder of one of the agents. “Shots fired!” Stan yelled into his earpiece. “From the West.” The security detail rushed Jepsen into the SUV and drove off.
Because the briefing reports had suggested this was a lower-risk engagement, the federal security detail was small. They relied on local police to cover the rest. Stan’s broadcast went out to the broader team, who rushed in the direction of the gunshots.
Neither Rich nor Beth had ever heard a gun fired before. Their eardrums stung from the noise, the pressure of the sudden, violent pop of the two shots from the building behind them. Followed by ringing, a high, metallic whine. A muffled distortion. Rich’s ears were throbbing. He was disoriented.
Everything had slowed down. Rich looked over at Beth. Upon her face was a look of shock and profound disappointment.
She fanned out her fingers and started running toward the building where the shots had come from.
Rich ran after her, yelling. “Beth, Beth! Stop!”
Rich heard sirens in the distance. Then footsteps running behind them, then shouting. “Stop! Police!” Beth kept running, so Rich did too. Two shots came at them from behind. Rich went down first, and then Beth.
Tran watched the scene before him with horror. The Clarks were sprawled out next to the steps of a five-story brick building to the west of the statue. An officer was standing over them, speaking into his radio. “Suspect 1 is a middle-aged white man—gunshot wound in the back through the stomach. Suspect 2 is a middle-aged white woman. Gunshot wound in the neck. No weapons found.”
More police and the secret service were stepping past them, entering the building with guns drawn. An ambulance drove up on the lawn. Two paramedics jumped out, one attended to the wounded couple, the other pulled out gurneys from the back.
Tran watched this all unfold from his van, paralyzed by shock and fear. He then grabbed his keys, left the van, and rushed towards the Clarks. Two more officers were standing near the paramedics and the Clarks. An older officer tried to restrain Tran as he pushed through. “I know them, I know them!” Tran said.
Beth’s eyes were closed. A paramedic was trying to stop the bleeding from her wound. Rich’s arms were moving. Tran tried to speak with him before the younger officer pulled him away.
Tran yelled at the officer. “They did nothing wrong! You fuckers, they did nothing wrong!”
The officer who pulled Tran aside stopped near the statue, asking questions as he took down the statement. Tran noticed the man’s composure slipping — young, maybe thirty, clearly shaken. It was obvious the department had crossed a line; you don’t shoot at someone running away unless you’ve seen something that warrants it. They hadn’t. This wasn’t a situation the Laramie officers were trained for.
Tran’s heart was racing, and he felt physically sick at the sight of Beth and Rich in the guerneys. There was blood. He wanted to puke, but willed himself to keep his composure and answer the officer’s questions as calmly as possible.
He said nothing of the note or Carl. Tran explained that he’d come to know Rich through the Elk’s club. That Rich’s wife, Beth, is a teacher, and Tran offered to show them the university and its tribute to Benjamin Franklin. Tran tried to steady his voice and said, as calmly as he could, “I’m sure we all would agree, Ben Franklin embodied the spirit of learning and discovery.” The officer took his information and dismissed him.
Tran’s hands were shaking as he reached for the keys to his van and opened the door.
He drove back toward Cheyenne, his mind cycling through everything: Rich, Beth, Carl, Nancy, Jepson, the blood, the officer, the blood.
Tran was no longer rubbing his head. His hands were shaking so much that he needed both of them on the steering wheel to control his van. He was driving, slowly, back home. He never considered returning to the flat he lived in alone.
Tran found himself parked in front of the Elk’s club. It was a Saturday afternoon. There would be a crowd. They would have heard the news. He needed to let them know that a member was down. He needed to explain what he’d seen.
He opened the heavy door, and the sunlight followed, illuminating the dark, heavily paneled interior of the club.
Maybe twenty faces looked in unison into the sunlight at the silhouette of Tran.
Cliff was at the bar. Tran sat down and ordered a double. The screens overhead were looping coverage of the incident — an assassination attempt on Jepsen. Several injured. The shooter still unidentified. No names released yet.
Cliff poured Tran his drink. He sensed something off. “Are you OK?”
“No,” Tran said. “I was at the University… during the shooting. The cops shot Rich and his wife, Beth. I’m not sure if either of them will make it.”
“Fuck,” Cliff said.
Hank and Alma were nearby and came up to Tran.
“What happened?” Hank asked.
“Rich’s wife had a reason to believe that someone was planning to take out Colin Jepson. Rich asked me to help him try to de-escalate things. The cops shot, next thing you know, both Rich and his wife were down.”
“Were they involved in the shooting?” Hank asked.
“No, of course not, neither one of them could hurt anyone,” Tran said.
“How bad is it?” Alma asked.
“I don’t know,” Trans said. He was rubbing his head from back to front.
“The wife, Beth, didn’t look good, but I couldn’t get close to her. It was chaos; there were cops everywhere. Both were shot from behind. Rich was awake. He was trying to tell me something. I bent over to hear him. His voice was faint, and it was hard to hear with all the commotion. I think he said, ‘It’s all fucked.’
Sage overheard this from his customary seat in the corner. When the sun went down, the lighting in that corner was insufficient. Sage’s face was in the shadows. He was staring out the window. He seemed to be looking for something, an answer perhaps.
“Yes, it is,” Sage said. “It’s all fucked.”
Only he was aware that his eyes, pale and clear as old glass, were starting to glisten and well up at the corners, threatening to break through the hard-earned dignity of a life lived without complaint. Although he was at least seventy, he remained a handsome man—strong jaw, high cheekbones, eyes that once must have burned with youth and confidence. He had deep lines in his skin, each one carved by years of labor and long days under open skies.
Sage had been intentional about not living in the past —its regrets, grief, and disappointments, and yes, its victories. He had no interest in preaching, or judging, or recollecting. Words had become less important to him over the years. He didn’t trust them; he didn’t need them. What was important were the few people he chose to spend time with and remember.
Every day, when Sage woke up, his goal was to embrace and observe the goodness of the moment. He believed there was always goodness if you looked for it. You could find it with the right mindset. Almost always.
But, right now, in this moment, Sage couldn’t see any goodness.
THE END
POSTSCRIPT:
I’ve sent this off to Netflix with the recommendation that, if they decide to adapt this into a feature film, they should play Black Swan by Thom Yorke during the ending credits.
(Netflix hasn’t responded as of the date of this posting)