THE BIG SHOOTOUT - Scherzo
George Lawrence cracked Little Red up across the jaw with his forearm and she hit the floor like a sack of potatoes.
Over all her racket, the cops heard the unmistakable sound of a shell being jacked into a shotgun. All hell broke loose when Dean pulled the trigger of the twelve-gauge. My pal Horace just got blown to bits. That's the only way to describe what happened to him. O’Conner pulled the kitchen table down on its side and slammed his back up against it. He landed on some of Ned and slipped in it. “Officer down,” he hollered into his radio. Dean ducked out of the doorway and reloaded.
Harvey was awake, now, but he pretended to be invisible, flat-out, face down on the kitchen floor. Little Red blasted past him like a burned cat. She slammed the master bedroom door behind her, desperate to escape.
The cops fired madly out of the kitchen, hoping a stray bullet would find Dean. No luck with that, though. He came rolling across the doorway blasting. He’d been a paratrooper in Afghanistan and he was an absolute wild man. The kitchen table exploded and the State cop O’Conner took a few pellets in the shoulder and in his back. He let out a yell, spun around and struggled to his knees, his pistol held by both his shaking hands. But Dean was out of sight again. O’Conner slid back onto his stomach, the shredded table offering no protection. He closed his eyes against the pain and lay unprotected, praying he wouldn’t be shot any more.
The cops proceeded to pulverize the wall next to the doorway with bullets Detective Loeb sprinted out the back door and ran around to the front of the house. He found a brick in the lawn and tossed it through the picture window into the living room. That knocked down a blanket that was hanging over the window in lieu of draperies, and Loeb got a good look at Dean’s shoulder blades.
“Drop that gun,” he yelled.
Dean spun, gun at his shoulder, until he was squinting down the long barrel at the detective. A second later, his dead eyes were staring at the ceiling and blood was pumping out from his forehead onto the floor.
Elsewhere inside the house, the living cops, including O’Conner, who was struggling to stay awake, all had their weapons out and they were looking for targets. Mary Lou Turnage snatched her wallet out of her purse and then ran and locked herself into the bathroom.
She went to work trying to unlock and open a window that had been accidentally painted shut sometime in the past few decades. After digging through some dry paint with a screwdriver that was fortuitously dropped on the floor sometime ago, she jerked the window open with a bang, stood on the toilet seat and launched herself through the screen and out into the mud out back. She hit the ground running, scooping up her skirt in her hand, and she scrambled into the woods.
Back in the kitchen, Sergeant O’Conner tried to push himself up to a kneeling position, but he couldn’t. He lay facedown on the bloody floor. Wilber Scott asked him if he was okay.
“No. I’m not okay,” spat out the Statey. “I been shot. Jeezus.” He squeezed his eyes shut again and shuddered against the pain.
Scott ripped open what was left of O’Conner’s shirt and was hit with a wave of nausea as he checked out the holes in his fellow officer. Dallas Perkins was rifling through some kitchen drawers, looking for a clean towel. He finally did locate one. He ran some cold water on it from the sink, squeezed it out, and pressed it down against O’Conner’s back.
“You’ll be okay,” Scott said, as he watched the white towel turn dark red.
“Just lay still. Medics are coming.” He applied pressure with the palms of his hands to the hot blood pouring out of his comrade. O’Conner didn’t complain. He’d gone into shock. The room stank heavy from the blood. Standing behind Perkins, Wilber Scott was using his radio, calling again for an ambulance and for more police.
“I’m going outside to check on Loeb,” Scott said. He held his pistol, barrel upwards, tight against his chest. He looked to George Lawrence and said, “Take over in here,” and then he was out the back door.
He joined the lieutenant and the two of them circled the house in opposite directions, looking for other shooters.
Young Dallas Preston was getting nauseous.
His hands were sticky and hot from O’Conner’s gurgling blood. Within five feet of him, lay the remains of his friend Horace McCarthy and the dead black man.
George Lawrence saw how pale Dallas was getting and wondered if the younger man might vomit. He hurried to the bedroom where Mary Lou’s purse was turned upside down on top of a queen-sized bed. He pulled a blanket off that bed, sending thepurse and its discarded contents flying through the air. The purse landed in a corner of the room, pushing gobs of dust ahead of it.
Lawrence then returned to the kitchen and placed the blanket carefully over the remains of patrolman McCarthy. He jerked open a door under the kitchen counter, found a dry towel and took Perkins’ spot, trying to stop the bleeding from O’Conner’s back. He told Dallas Perkins to go outside and get some fresh air.
The young man wandered out of the kitchen, walked around the house and into the front yard. He watched Deputy Scott and Lieutenant Loeb as they circled the building on either side of him. Dallas Perkins stood perfectly still with his handgun pointing to the ground.
Deputy Lawrence heard a baby yowling somewhere. He figured it wasn’t a threat to him and he ignored it.
Somewhere in the distance, sirens were screaming.
They were getting closer.