Where the Quiet Breaks
The wounds of life do not discriminate
The man brought his own bullets in the right front pocket of his jeans and entered the gun store and studied the display case before pointing to the stainless steel .357 hand-cannon whose elegance and lethality would serve whatever dark purpose had driven him there.
“Yes sir, that one’s a beauty,” the owner said as he slid the Colt Python from the glass box and laid it atop the case on a soft display towel.
“Go ahead,” he said.
The man held it and the weight pleased him as he smelled the gun oil and ran his fingers along the stainless steel. Then the corners of his lips twitched into an odd smirk as he reached for the bullets in his pocket, turning slightly away as he loaded each round into the smooth cylinder whose satisfying revolutions promised violence.
“Sorry, sir, gotta keep it on the glass table,” the owner said, but the words were ignored. The man ran out the entrance waving the pistol and townsfolk scattered in fear, ducking behind cars or fleeing without direction.
He had no interest in them. He hurried toward Mt. Hermon Road where motorists waited behind red lights.
The gun store owner phoned 911 and shouted incoherently and threatened to pursue, but dispatchers urged him to stay inside so the arriving officers would not mistake him for the suspect and shoot him.
The gunman rambled through the intersection and his gun hand flailed overhead until two shots cracked the morning air and left people screaming, a violent rupture in the day’s quiet routines.
Sirens converged. Officers descended on the area as citizens ran in confusion. A motor officer spotted the gunman and laid down his Harley and crouched behind it and drew down on the figure in the roadway.
“I have a shot, give me the word,” he shouted into his hand pack, forgetting that he alone must decide whether to fire. But the moment passed. The madman sprinted north along Mt. Hermon Road.
Patrol cars closed in but not before the screaming man yanked open the door of an elderly woman’s car and dragged her out by her gray hair. Her knees scraped across the macadam as he threw her aside and sped off in her vehicle through traffic and red lights.
Officers gave chase, their patrol cars speeding with sirens and flashing lights.
In the front passenger seat of one patrol unit a rookie officer worked the radio while his partner gripped the steering wheel and followed the others with fierce concentration.
The pursuit crossed into a neighboring city where the suspect pulled into a gas station as if stopping for a routine fill-up. He stepped out with the pistol waving and taunting the officers who positioned behind their cars and ordered him to surrender.
He ignored them and calmly began to refuel the car.
A K9 team arrived and the dog was sent forward to stop the man but the suspect fired and struck the animal in the rear leg. The dog crumpled and the officers answered with a volley meant to end the threat.
The man was struck several times and went down.
The rookie officer had just stepped from his car when the gunfire erupted. He took cover behind the engine block and saw the wounded dog and the bleeding suspect on the pavement twenty feet away. His pulse thudded in his ears and the smell of cordite mixed with the sharp odor of fuel and hot asphalt. For a moment it did not seem possible that such violence was unfolding in the bright light of day, but there it was.
Paramedics tried to save the man but he slipped into cardiac arrest and whatever violent thoughts still animating him unspooled into oblivion.
They say animals lack souls but none of the officers who worked to save the wounded police dog believed that. He was rushed to surgery and recovered enough to return to duty, serving for years before age took him as it takes all creatures.
There were investigations and reports and news stories but little was learned about the gunman beyond the ruin of his final hours. Whether anyone mourned him was unknown.
Medals were awarded to several officers and a dispatcher for their actions that day but such honors cannot erase memory. The stress and tragedy of the event settled into the minds of those involved and stayed there.
Beneath the order and civility that most people take for granted lies a fragile edge where troubled souls and unraveling minds move among us, their lives held together by things too thin to bear the weight forever.
The rookie faced his fears that day and did his job.
He phoned his parents that night and told them everything and they listened with pride and with the quiet fear known only to families of those who wear uniforms and run toward danger.
Years went by and he advanced in the ranks and in time became chief of police. He cared for his officers and prayed for their safety though experience taught him that nothing is certain and that every shift carries risks.
During one of the department’s annual inspections he walked the line of uniformed men and women at attention. He thanked them and encouraged them and felt the familiar weight of responsibility.
Then he came to the police dog.
He knelt and stroked the dog’s neck and the memories rose. The shot dog on the pavement. The volley of gunfire. The screams of bystanders. The smell of cordite. The disbelief that such things could occur on an ordinary day in an ordinary town.
So many years later and it all remains as clear as if it happened yesterday.
Every police dog and every shepherd summons some part of it. Not as trauma or disorder but as the hard memories that come with a life spent answering calls no one else wants to face.
Most people carry such memories.
They may come from a hospital room or a ruined business or a child’s silent crib. The wounds of life do not discriminate.
Most people endure. Some struggle. A few are undone, like the man who filled his pocket with ammunition and stepped into the world on a path that could only end in violence.
The rookie in me was glad the man was stopped. The chief in me prayed there would be no more such days and that every officer and every K9 might finish their shifts unharmed.
And the writer in me mourns the tragedies of this broken world, the suffering of the innocent and the danger borne by those sworn to protect, and even the lost man whose life found no other way before it darkened into its final chapter.
This world is beautiful but it is wounded and all of us, each soul whether whole or fractured, are moving through it as best we can.
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Very moving piece. Thank you John. I know something of what you share as I worked in public service. I too prefer peace and quiet. I think it takes a very long time for the shock waves to still.
I often hear the "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" aphorism and mostly hear the macho cynicism behind that. I always appreciate your "battle" stories and the fact that your "wounds" have made you a very sensitive and wise writer. Thank you for this story.