Instead, he has been drafting an affidavit that provides my version of said events. It is sadly lacking in details but so far says nothing that is out-and-out perjury. If my brother is going to get all the respect and adulation he commands from our one and only parent, he might as well fucking earn it. And if he can come up with a document that keeps the Commonwealth off my back, he will have done so, in spades.
As I lie in bed at night, trying to fall asleep, I think about Lesley McConnell and I wonder if she has had her transplant yet. I wonder how Frank is handling the death of his kid brother. I think of Rabbi Ed and the misguided mission he set for himself, for his ego, and the tragedy it led to. I think of Ron and Sheila Fine, of course, wishing so badly I could have done better by them, that I could have come home triumphantly, David in tow, the threat to his life erased and his future as bright and shining as the city of Boston once was. All I got for them was a $250,000 endowment of a scholarship in David’s name, courtesy of Dr. E. Charles Stayner, to be given annually to the most deserving transplant fellow. I think of Shana and regret the stone wall that got thrown up between us. She was a lovely young woman, just the kind I think I could fall in love with, given half a chance. Instead, she’s another in a long line that got hurt by getting close to me.
I am not a violent man. I keep telling myself that. I think of myself as a good man at heart, who keeps getting caught up in deeds committed by men who really are violent. So call it justice. It’s how I think of it broadly. Why then can’t it roll off me the way it does Ryan? Why do I feel the cold crushing weight of every corpse? Until last June, my cases at Beacon Security had never involved more than a fist here, an elbow there. Since then, my three forays into the United States have been storms of violence.
So I tell myself, if it only happens when I go to the States, where the stakes seem higher and guns abound, then there’s a simple solution. Turn down any work that would take me there. Recommend someone local instead. Accept any referral fees, which is what I should have done when Ron Fine called. Stay in Canada, where cases rarely degenerate into the same kind of carnage. Hide my passport and keep my peace-loving self at home. Because that is what non-violent men do.