Someone has to...

This story includes suicide, mental health, controversial theory

The door is dark stained, three-panel Walnut. Kind of fancy for an office door, I think. The gold letters at eye level say Dr. Elizabeth Lewisky, M.D. My captain ordered me to come down here and have a session after the events of the last few months. A woman opens the door. She looks to be in her mid-forties, attractive, probably more so a few years ago, very studious-looking with her brown hair pulled back into a bun, reading glasses hanging by a gold chain around her neck. She has on a brown checkered business suit and holds a typical manila folder in her hands. Her voice is smooth, “Officer Washington?”

I answer, “Yes, Ma’am.” 

“Come on in, officer.” She holds the door as I enter her office. A large bookcase covers the entire back wall looming over her desk, which is ornate oak and mahogany. The desktop is mostly bare except for a computer screen, a desk calendar, and a picture of what I assume is her husband and two children, a boy and a girl. To the side of the desk is a large leather chair with a floor lamp, and across from that is the requisite couch. “Do you have your weapon, Officer Washington?”

“Yes, Ma’am.” I remove my 9mm Baretta from my concealed hip holster and my back up from an ankle holster. I remove the clips, clear the chambers and hand them over to her which she places in a safe under her desk. I feel naked now, vulnerable, but I could still fight if needed. I’ve had all of the training, plus some Krav Maga on my own time. I’m just in my street clothes today, off duty, if there is such a thing, and they say the uniform ‘triggers’ some people. What a load of bullshit that is. It used to make people feel safer. Now it’s like wearing a goddamn target for every mentally unstable asshole with an illegal firearm that thinks he’s been given permission to shoot a cop.

“Have a seat, officer,” she says as she points her thin fingers toward the couch. I focus on every move of her hands. I have to watch every movement around me.

“Please, call me Jim,” I say as I position myself in the middle of the six-foot-long couch with the high curved ends for laying down. What’s the damned difference if I sit or lay down? The couch makes no sounds as I sit and the cushion is comfortable. There’s a large pillow with a bright floral design at one end and a couple of small throw pillows with red and blue stripes on the other. A three-picture set, with one large picture in the middle offset by two narrow frames on each side hang over the couch. The picture is a field of daisies with their white petals and big yellow centers. 

“Would you like to lay down?”

I think of that field of daisies. “No, Ma’am. I’ll just sit if that’s okay.” Besides, if I lay down it’ll take me longer to get up if needed.

“Okay, Jim. I understand you’ve been struggling with work lately.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“When did this start?”

“It’s been building for several years.”

“Do you feel you have been struggling for years?”

“No, Ma’am. My job has always had some danger to it, some risks. I’d been dealing with it for quite a while and it was ok. Just the last couple of years have been harder and it’s getting worse out there. It seems that nobody cares anymore, or at least very few.”

“Let’s start with the positive aspects you find with your job?”

“Ok, that’s easy. I like to stop and play basketball with a group of kids down off Independence and Stenton. Cops are not always a welcome sight in that area. But these kids seem to like having me stop and play hoops with them. Hopefully, they can get past seeing cops as a threat. I often see some of the neighborhood thugs walk away from the court when I stop, so it gives the kids a break from them. I work with St. Mary’s on Vincente every week with handing out food baskets and they let me do it in uniform, again hopefully putting out the message that we’re there to help. My partner, Evan Torres, and I bought a family some Christmas presents after theirs were stolen on Christmas Eve. Cutest kids you ever saw and they were beaming when we handed them the presents. Told them that Santa asked us to stop by because they had been so good. We can’t prevent every crime and we know that. Hell, there are more criminals than cops, but we try to prevent what we can. We try to stop drunk drivers from killing someone and ruining the lives of two families. Try to get drugs off the streets, try to get illegal weapons into the crusher, try to keep innocent people from getting hurt.”

“You repeated that you ‘try’ to do these things. Do you find your job frustrating?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“What kind of things do you find frustrating?”

Where to start. What part of my job isn’t frustrating lately. I look down at the floor, hoping there’s an easy answer written in the shine on my shoes. They just reflect my face. She adjusts in her seat and the leather squeaks. My head snaps up to see the motion as my legs and arms tense, ready to spring. Realizing there’s no threat, I relax again. I flip through my memories trying to categorize what frustrates me most. “Last year my partner, Torres, and I took down a drug trafficker after a short chase. We got ten kilos of cocaine off the street! Man, we felt great! The whole precinct applauded us when we brought him in with all that coke. But it didn’t last. That poison is just flowing over the border and it was replaced the next day. A few years ago, we were making a dent and ten kilos would have been huge. Now it means almost nothing to get what we did. About eight months ago Torres and I responded to a domestic disturbance call. We stopped some drunk guy from beating his wife after his football team lost. We took him in right away assuming she would press charges and we expected him to sit in prison for a while. She forgave him the next day. No charges, so he only spent one night in jail. He killed her the next week when his team lost again. Over a goddamn game. A few months ago I went into a Starbucks to get my morning coffee, and the rebellious ‘woke’ white girl behind the counter with the green hair and ear-to-nose chain screams that she refuses to wait on me for what some cop did on the other side of the country. I would be the one blamed for not being there if some pervert decides he wants to rape her in broad daylight on the subway and the people on the train, not wanting to get involved, just turn the other way and let it happen. People are more interested in catching a crime on video so they can get as many fucking, pardon my language, get as many Instagram, YouTube, or Tik Tok views as possible than saving this young woman. Little does she know or care, that I would sacrifice my life to save hers, regardless of her feelings about my job. Finally, six months ago, there was an armed robber Torres and I got off the street after he knocked off a convenience store. The DA decided not to prosecute since nobody was hurt, he only stole a hundred and thirty dollars, and it would have been the man’s third strike. Two weeks later he killed a woman for her purse and twenty bucks. Torres couldn’t take it anymore. He killed himself two days later.”

Doctor Lewisky was feverishly taking notes and froze on that last part. She’s been a psychologist for several years, but only recently began working with police officers. She removes her reading glasses, grabs her pen in both hands, and leans forward over her notepad. “It doesn’t sound like any of those examples were in your control.”

“They weren’t. We’re the custodial staff of the city. Cleaning up the shit day after day, but the people that could prevent some of this shit from happening won’t because they’re afraid of hurting someone’s feelings. That just puts us and the community in more danger.” 

My head snaps in her direction again with more sudden motion as she sits back and puts her reading glasses back on and crosses her legs. “Can you describe a typical day on the job?”

Typical day. What the fuck is a typical day? This time I sit back and try to find the answers on the ceiling. The office building has the normal drop ceiling with white acoustic tiles with holes. It’s difficult to focus my eyes on the tiles. What the hell are those made of? Cork, fiberboard, plastic? I sit back up and shake my head. “I don’t have any typical days, Doctor Lewisky. Every day is different and I never know what to expect. I guess there are a few things that start that way. I start my day by putting on my Kevlar vest in case some asshole takes a shot at me because I pulled him over for speeding. I put on my body camera to prove I really didn’t shoot first, cause God knows everyone will automatically say I did. Or because I need to prove that the subject was trying to evade arrest or struggling and I didn’t use a chokehold to subdue him. I have a backup handgun strapped to my ankle just in case my main weapon is taken away in a struggle with a guy that’s six inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than me. I pack my taser, which I prefer, so I have an option other than shooting the guy that’s whacked out on drugs and wielding a machete and would happily chop me in half in his drugged-out delusion. I have a shotgun and an assault rifle in the car in case, like last week, I pull a car over for a bad taillight and two guys jump out of the car with AKs and open fire on me. I don’t eat or sit parked for long in the car because it’s too easy for some psycho to sneak up and shoot me in the head while I’m eating a cheeseburger.”

“Are you afraid on the job?”

“Every day.”

“Then why do you still do this job?”

That’s a good question. Why do I still do this? Again I search my shoes for an answer in the shine, but they only reflect my face. Every day I encounter the worst the city has to offer. Murderers, rapists, drug dealers, thieves. But, if I’m not there to stop them then who? Who would do it? My eyes return to hers with the answer I saw. “Somebody has to.”