The loons called out from the park, as they often did in their season, before everything returned to its silence. There was a reedy pond made for them where a wispy mist ruled the unsunned morning hours and the bits of humanity who rose early to sit on the park benches. Their jobs, their day, stretched out before them in the quiet of the park, unconsciously yet intimately known. The mist concealed them better than a cubicle, a true and comforting alone. They weren’t thinking about anything really, not if they could help it. They just kept their faces unreadable. In the end, maybe all they had was their skin. Their cracks and pores where they leaked out of themselves, where others bleed their diseased humanity into them. With their skin their souls became visible. With their faces they became invisible again and returned to their silence. It was the silence between trumpet blasts and the terror of knowing one instrument can drown out the orchestra.
If each person kept their face unreadable, it was only because they had yielded themselves up to the collective of the city – a city absurdly balancing the terror of open war and the unreality of footsteps, cab rides, work schedules, and TV shows. Some of the lesser drunks on Third Avenue – in the artists’ neighborhood – gave up drinking after dark. The college students stayed in their dorms at night, if they hadn’t dropped out or transferred already. Those that remained left their windows open on a Saturday morning to listen to the loons’ calls.
Nearby, in another sort of park, their classmate was being lowered into the ground so she could rest. We could only watch helplessly. She was the shortest note we had known, and her silence echoed in a range we couldn’t hear. In our anger, we cut down the most beautiful flowers and laid them on the perfectly manicured lawn beside her to rot. Our anger was sweet and thoughtful and above all, peaceful. She needed peace.
“We know she’s in a place with no more tears, no more pain, and no more sadness,” the eulogist said. “We pray that God will give Sara justice.”
Before the prayer’s echoes had time to die away, the sound of an answer was being formed in the heart of the city. There was a fine old building there – built a hundred and twenty-seven years ago – that had been a bank, then the corporate offices of some retail chain, but currently housed a police precinct. The building stood at attention with all its entropy as reporters tested their microphones and photographers snapped pictures to gauge the light. The rank and file of the precinct posed into an impressive show of force, the concrete power of good, while political spokespersons and public relations officers reviewed their carefully crafted statements, hoping for the right blend of disclosure and discretion.
The few people who remained inside the building didn’t dare break the silence. They had the snake trapped under a basket, and no one would move. It was a cautious nature.
“Last night I dreamt I was back in Africa.”
Captain Mangrim stared at the suspect through the dusky glass of the one-way mirror. He took a long time to think about his words.
“There was a lion there, and I was going to shoot it. But someone wouldn’t let me, said it was a good lion.”
Next to the captain stood a powerful looking man wearing a safari jacket and pith helmet. He contrasted with Mangrim, who was tired, older, graying, fading into the color of the suit he was wearing.
“Who wouldn’t let you?” the man asked.
Mangrim turned his weary eyes on his strangely dressed companion.
“I suppose you think I should have shot it, no matter if it was good or not. I suppose that’s what he would have done.” A head movement indicated the suspect. “You don’t really have a choice in dreams; sometimes you just do stuff. You just know things; you don’t know how.”
Mangrim closed his eyes and let the weight of this case press down on him. Life in the city was tense at the best of times, but this… His wife, whom he had forbidden to ask him about his work, had woken him, crying, and asked when this would be over. “Those families…” she’d said. The case had wormed its way on their bleached-pine queen sized bed and settled into their cotton sheets. Suddenly the cotton became suffocating and Mangrim had to get out. The entire city had hidden behind him, a flock of sheep, and he’d watched helplessly as they’d been picked off, one by one.
When Mangrim opened his eyes, the other man was staring at him.
“What do you think it means?”
“I think he’s the lion.” Mangrim returned his gaze to the suspect sitting placidly inside the interrogation room. “We’re going to get to trial, and some expert is going to get up there and tell us that he’s mentally insane or that he’s not competent to stand trial. Then he’ll walk.”
“That won’t happen,” the man said firmly.
“It isn’t up to you!” cried Mangrim. “We have rules and laws. Courts don’t work by what you think is right.”
This man, dressed in ridiculous attire for a police station, was another weight upon Mangrim, who simply wanted to be left alone. He was counting the days until his retirement, when he could rest and know he’d done his part for society. He had no patience for younger men with ideals, who interrupted the smooth operation of the precinct as much as the criminals. More, if one considers the system doesn’t run without criminals.
“Anyway, you’re wrong about your dream,” the man said, just when Mangrim was hoping he wouldn’t say anything more. “I’m the good lion.”
He looked at Mangrim with those eyes. Steady, quiet, unyielding eyes. Brown eyes.
“You know what we do with lions? Put them in the zoo,” Mangrim retorted. “If you go in there dressed in that clown suit and his lawyer comes in, he’ll have a field day. He’ll be filing motions and appeals until Easter. Go home, put on a suit and tie, or I’m suspending you.”
“I can’t. I have to talk to him. Have to show you I’m the good one. The good lion.” Mangrim started to protest, but the man cut him off. “I tracked him down. I found the guy. I need to roar at him, so he’ll know who the stronger lion is. That’s what hunters would do when they were on safari. As the lion lay dying, they’d go up to it and roar. That might seem silly in your society, but the jungle has to know who the better animal is.”
“Don’t you mean our society?”
“I’m not part of your society.” The man dropped his gaze for the first time as he spoke. It gave his statement the feeling of an apology.
“That badge you like to tote around says differently, Detective,” Mangrim said. “It says it’s your job to protect and serve this city, not act out some ridiculous pageant to teach us about your ideals. Fear and panic are everywhere, waiting to swallow this city whole. You can’t lead a charge anytime you feel like it, just because you see the world in black and white. It’s more complicated then that. People like you, with your preposterous demands put more strain on the system. You’d do well to have a little more faith in society.”
The conversation settled into a silence.
Society is a dream from which we’ll never wake.
The thought stuck in the detective’s head and with it, a strong desire to talk to the man in room. Not for the sake of the case, but to find something or maybe hear something that would make this feel right, that would mark this in his heart as justice. He set his badge and gun on the window ledge. He moved to the door that led into the room where the suspect sat and grabbed the handle.
“What are you doing?” demanded Mangrim.
“I can’t go on unless I know,” the detective answered.
Know what? Mangrim thought. He was sick of dreaming about duct tape and screwdrivers, sick of dreams where the victims became the reporters questioning him about why he couldn’t solve their murders. He longed to return to his old dreams where he was running the city marathon with Captain Crunch.
The detective opened the door and entered the room. Mangrim followed, pulled forward by the convictions of the man in the safari jacket, pulled backward by the fear of being penalized by the law, pulled sideways by the expectations of the public, trying to keep his balance on the tightrope.
***
The suspect had been alone for a long time. He was tired from anticipating when the door would next open and who would come through it. The door’s sudden movement broke the quiet and triggered an adrenaline surge through the suspect’s body. More alarming was the man who came through the door, dressed in a khaki safari outfit.
“What are you?” the suspect asked.
Mangrim slipped into the room as well, receiving only a momentary glance from the suspect. It was the khaki-clad detective, whose name was Jokelson, he’d marked as the dangerous one. It was Jokelson who made an aggressive move towards the table.
“Are you a cop? Or some kind of lawyer? Are you trying to amuse a confession out of me?” The suspect was maintaining a calm exterior.
Jokelson sat down at the table, flipped through the photos slowly and said nothing. He was giving the man time to get used to his presence, to sniff him a bit and let the alarm subside. If he didn’t make eye contact, the man could have time to react naturally, apart from the influence of the detective’s attention.
The suspect waited for Jokelson to say something. He watched every movement the detective made, his thumbs separating each picture from the last, his foot tapping to make a noise, anything to keep the threat of silence away. The suspect sat back in his chair and resumed his anticipation of the next move.
Mangrim could do nothing but watch the scene play out before him. He had the eerie feeling of not being present, like he was a ghost or a patron at a theatre. He remembered his dream, how unnaturally quiet the scene was, how the lion had stayed so still in the lilting grass while the nervous gazelle tried to decide if the movement it had seen was friend or foe, and guess at how much time it needed to escape.
“No,” Jokelson answered when he felt enough time had passed. “I have no use for a confession. In fact, it’s rather more fun for me if you stay defiant until the end.”
He spread the pictures on the table. The man said nothing. He simply turned his eyes to the mirror and sat perfectly still. It was his turn to pretend not to be present, a childish defense mechanism in his case.
“It’s ok if you don’t want to tell me about them,” Jokelson continued. “I’ll talk for a little while, and if you want to add anything, go ahead. I think we both see the same thing when we look at these pictures.” A pause. Timing is everything if one wants their words heard. “The slaughter. The carcasses. Table scraps from your meals. You go after the weak and lonely, the helpless, to feed your hunger. Like an animal. Much like a lion. Do you see a lion looking back at you in that mirror right now?”
The man’s face betrayed nothing. His body stayed tense, motionless.
“Did they fight much?” Jokelson asked. “It’s hard to get prey to lie down, isn’t it? Even the weak ones, kicking and screaming.”
The man looked at Jokelson now, searched his eyes. The man was trying to figure him out, Jokelson knew. He was made for these kinds of cases, when human nature was at its simplest and most honest, when it descends from the lofty heights of its god-image down to its animal roots. He took off his hat and set it on the table between himself and the man.
“They all wear suits,” he said conversationally. “They have to. They have families and soccer games and apple pies to protect. Feelings of peace and safety they have to convey. The American way, as it were. But not me, see? I’m a lion hunter. That’s why I have to wear this, to hunt lions. I seek out the strongest, most ferocious beast I can find and kill it.”
A sense of unreality crept over Mangrim. The dream felt strange in his mind, and Mangrim suddenly wondered if it was Jokelson’s dream he was remembering, Jokelson there under the blinding blue sky, lining up the lion with his gun sight, the lion still eyeing its next meal, unable to comprehend the power bearing down on it while it sat in the amber grass. Was this a past conversation he’d had with the detective that he was now claiming as his own? Or was he so tired he’d lost control of his thoughts?
Humankind alone among all the animals can become confused in its point of view. Humans alone can see themselves from different perspectives, can choose their reality, can become deceived in their perception of existence.
Jokelson added apologetically, “I don’t even like apple pie.”
The man touched the helmet lightly, staring at it. It was something he understood. Maybe he saw one in a cartoon once, or in a picture of Teddy Roosevelt. He pushed it to the side and tapped one of the photos.
“This blonde one,” he said, “she was first.”
Jokelson nodded.
“She was walking where she shouldn’t have been so late at night. Shouldn’t have been there. Not a girl. Not a pretty one. She fought the most. I started bringing a gun after that one.”
The man waited to see what Jokelson would say, but he didn’t say anything. He must not show a reaction, not fear or aggression, while the man made his first tentative assertions.
“The next one, that one there,” the man said, indicating another picture, “I followed around a couple of days. I learned to be patient. There’s always a way to get them alone, if you’re patient. It’s not easy. You gotta be smart and quick and strong. That’s why most people don’t do it. But if you’re able to get them…”
“It’s satisfying, isn’t it?” Jokelson interjected, looking at the relish in the man’s eyes. The memories of what he did were pouring over him now, and he was glorying in them.
“Oh yes. I finally fulfilled that deep desire inside me for love. I slept for days after each one, just…existing. Feeling so happy and complete. Like the sun was shining down on me.”
“How do you feel now?”
Suspicion crept over the suspect’s expression. The gazelle sprinted away untouched and unaware. But the dream was never about the gazelle. It was a hunter and a lion, and how their awareness changed all of us as we stared down into that grave.
“Am I supposed to feel bad because I did wrong? It shouldn’t be terribly shocking to a smart man like you that I don’t feel at all. If this is a lesson in right and wrong, allow me to teach a lesson in return. If right and good are so powerful, why do you bring a gun? Where exactly does your power come from?”
Jokelson sighed. No one out there could understand who he was. He wondered at the irony that he should have to come to this room and sit across from the man he helped capture to find understanding - the sweet bliss of relating to another human soul. He wondered if, on safaris long ago the hunters felt that the animals they shot were their only friends in the world. But that moment had passed. The suspect got him thinking about society and power again, and it clouded everything. In his eyes, there was the fire, the flood, the ark, and the ravings of the third wheel. Jokelson calmly gathered up the photos, stood, and walked to the door. Mangrim’s dream ended as it always had. The lion walked away, proud like a king, and the hunter was left to wonder just what had been accomplished.
When the door closed, Mangrim put his arm on Jokelson’s shoulder. “You know, everyone has ideals like that when they’re young. But, as you spend time in this world, you learn nothing works that way.” It was a passing comment, not a judgment because he truly admired the detective.
“What a very condemning statistic for this world.”
Mangrim grabbed the badge and gun and held them out to Jokelson.
“Here,” he said, “next time though, don’t just…”
Jokelson interrupted. “I don’t want them. That guy…he isn’t right, but he isn’t wrong. I don’t think I’ll ever know what right is as long as I have power.”
“You mean you’re quitting?” Mangrim asked. He was stunned. The gun and badge sat awkwardly in his hand.
“Yeah. I’ll just be an ordinary citizen and do what’s right. You know, find ways to help out my neighbors, refuse to look the other way when people do wrong. That kind of thing.”
Mangrim couldn’t think of anything to say after that. There was never anything to say to Jokelson. Their footsteps echoed through the empty halls. At the end, they both stopped, unwilling to join the noisy scene outside.
“I think I’m going to go home and sleep for a few days,” Jokelson said. “Just exist.”
Mangrim nodded.
“I guess I’ll start on some paperwork. I don’t think I’ll sleep much until I get this whole thing over with.”
The suspect, whose name was Allen, was convicted and given the death penalty. As he waited the years that remained until his execution, he found new life in observing the things around him, and in the journal he kept. It wasn’t a matter of repentance, simply a matter of adaptation.
Allen’s jail cell became a relief. Routine was imposed on his life and distractions were eliminated. There were no mysterious details that slipped from his head, no pressure of living, as he called it. Someone else cleaned all that up, maybe the janitors or the guards. Maybe the judge, after he sentences you, orders someone to take your garbage to the dump. Then you can begin your trim little life on death row.
Crickets emerged from the silence of his cell to whisper songs to him. They found their way through small cracks in the wall. Allen took their willing presence as a sign of mercy. He named them all, and the places they had gotten in. Mostly they came in through the Negev, which was the one crack Allen could see daylight through. His journal was full of stories about them and their adventures in the world, elaborate fictions that showed a gifted imagination. If he stood on his cot, he could see out a small window onto the prison grounds. This was his only link to the outside world from which his crickets had come in.
During his fifth year, the state executed Jerrod Ashmore, the meekest of men, who one day murdered his outspoken wife and her immediate family. An execution was a big event for everyone on death row because they were so infrequent. It was a quiet day for all the prisoners; they were reminded of the silence that awaited each of them.
Allen watched from his window as Ashmore was lowered into his inheritance in the prison cemetery. After all this time, he was curious to remember what the world outside his window was really like. Not the made-up world his crickets lived in, but the real world, where he once resided. A single person attended the funeral, the electrician that the prison had brought in to service the electric chair a week previous, who simply wanted to apologize for being so good at his job. The only music was the occasional and faint haunting of the loons’ call. Allen stood on his cot and watched the fresh earth long after everything returned to its silence.
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