No Hiding in Boise Read online

“I spoke with his mother. They’re planning a service for next weekend,” he says. “I’ll tell Monica to send you the details … if you want to come.”

  “Thanks,” I say, though I know I won’t be able to go. I won’t be able to stand being “the bartender who survived,” on display for all the mourners.

  “I’m sorry you were there,” he says. “I haven’t slept since, just thinking about you guys in there.”

  I look up at him, meet his eyes. Most of the crowd is past us now, so it’s just us on the sidewalk. My heart rate slows, the dizziness calms.

  “You don’t owe any apology,” I say. “It’s not your fault.”

  He lets out a deep, loud sigh. “Jan keeps sayin’ that same thing.”

  Jan is “his gal.” I don’t think they are officially married, but they’ve been together for decades. They wear matching turquoise rings and have each other’s names tattooed on the inside of their wrists.

  “Well, she’s right,” I tell him.

  “I just think if I was there, I would’ve been able to do something about it,” he says.

  To most people, the response would be There’s nothing you could have done. But Ray is the Most Interesting Man in the World. It’s hard to believe there isn’t something he could have done.

  I change the subject. “What’s going to happen to the bar?”

  He sighs again. “Don’t know. Monica asked the same thing. Feels wrong to open it again. But I don’t want you guys out of a job.”

  I laugh for what feels like the first time in years. It’s rusty, sounds more like a cough.

  “You can’t reopen the bar just to give us jobs,” I tell him. What I don’t say is that it’s insane of him to think I’ll ever be able to set foot inside a bar again.

  “Yeah, yeah,” he says. “Jan said that too.”

  “Have the police told you anything about why?”

  He looks at me curiously. “Why what?”

  “Why your bar? Did you know him or something?”

  I’ve been wondering this—if Jed Ketcher chose Ray’s for a reason. In a way, I want there to be a reason. There’s something terrifying about accepting the complete randomness of it all. It’s the randomness that makes it so hard for me to leave the house.

  “Him? You mean Jed Ketcher?”

  I nod.

  He shakes his head. “Never heard of the kid before this.”

  He wasn’t really a kid—he was twenty-eight—but I don’t correct him.

  Another large group of people nears. A girl yelps and I crouch down, instinctively. The yelp turns into laughter. Her boyfriend just tickled her or something, and here I am ducking for cover.

  “You okay?” Ray asks, looking down at me, his hand outstretched to help me up.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” I tell him, standing, not accepting his hand. “Hey, I forgot something in my car. I’ll see you over there?”

  Before he can say goodbye, I am walking back toward my car, against the force of the large group with the yelping girl. My vision is blurry, my heart pounding.

  I can’t do this.

  I thought I could, but I can’t.

  When I get to my car, I feel as if I’ve been walking for miles, though it’s just a couple blocks. I fall against the driver’s side door, rest my head on the roof of the car. I try my deep breaths again, but I can’t get enough air in my lungs. Before I know it, I’m legitimately hyperventilating.

  I can hear the event beginning, someone on a microphone thanking everyone for coming.

  “Excuse me?” a voice says, behind me.

  I jump, turn around.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” the woman says. “I just saw you and … are you okay?”

  I recognize this woman. I can see her face underneath the bill of her baseball cap, and I recognize her.

  I know who she is.

  I summon enough breath to say, “I think so.”

  This is a lie. I don’t think I’m okay at all. And she can tell.

  “How about you sit?” she says.

  She takes me by the arm, and we sit on the curb. She tells me to put my head between my knees.

  It works.

  After a few moments, I feel better.

  I look up at her.

  I know this woman.

  She is Joyce Ketcher. Jed’s mother. The shooter’s mother.

  I expect the panic to return as I come to this realization, but it doesn’t. It’s as if I’m paralyzed, just like I was when the shooting started. I read online that there are not just two ways to respond to a crisis—fight or flight; there’s a third—freeze. I am experiencing the third. I freeze.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” she says.

  She is stroking my back. I am letting the mother of the shooter stroke my back.

  “I don’t like crowds either,” she says.

  Strangely, I’m not scared of her. I’ve studied photos of Jed Ketcher, and I can see the resemblance. They have similar eyes. But this doesn’t frighten me. She seems kind, gentle, nothing like what I’d expect of the mother of a killer.

  “I have bottles of water in the trunk of my car,” she says. “You should have some water.”

  I let her help me stand and we walk on Sixth Street, away from the vigil. We stop at a gray Honda Accord. She goes to the trunk and I look inside the car, see several bouquets of lilies in a bucket on the passenger’s seat. She must be planning to leave them after the vigil. Tomorrow, the area in front of the Capitol will be adorned with so many flowers, balloons, and candles.

  “Did you know someone in the shooting?” I ask her, giving her this opportunity to tell me, to confess.

  She closes the trunk and comes back with two bottles of water, giving both to me.

  “I did,” she says.

  I wait for more and when she says nothing, I say, “I was there that night.”

  Her eyes widen. She puts her hand to her chest.

  “My god, I’m so sorry,” she says.

  The apology, if I didn’t know who she was, would sound strange, overly heartfelt, too dramatic.

  There are so many questions I want to ask her—about her son, about what happened, about why. It’s possible she doesn’t have all the answers, but she must have some. She is his mother, after all.

  “I’m just glad I made it out,” I tell her.

  She sighs. “Do you want to go to the vigil? I’ll walk with you.”

  I bite my bottom lip. “I think it might be too much for me,” I say.

  “I understand.”

  We start walking, stop when we get to my car.

  “Well, it was nice meeting you,” I say to her, switching both water bottles to one hand so I can shake her hand. “Thank you for helping me.”

  She nods as she takes my hand, holds it in hers for a couple seconds beyond what would be considered normal.

  I open my car door, sit in the driver’s seat. I watch her walk until I can’t see her anymore. Then I reach into my center console for the Post-its and pen I keep there. On one of the neon-orange sticky notes, I write:

  Thank you, again, for helping me. If you ever want to talk, call me. —Tessa

  I add my phone number, then walk back to her car and tuck the note under her windshield wiper. It’s a long shot, I know. But maybe she really does need someone to talk to. Ryan will think this is insane, my reaching out to the shooter’s mother this way. He just doesn’t understand how desperately I need to know more—about Jed, about why. I don’t like keeping secrets from Ryan. But, like I said, it’s unlikely she’ll actually call, so the only secret will be that I left a neon-orange Post-it under some woman’s windshield wiper.

  JOYCE

  WHEN I GET BACK to Gary’s condo after the vigil, I open the front door as quietly as I can, not wanting to wake him. It’s after eleven o’clock. The vigil ended around ten, then I walked back to my car for the lilies. That’s when I saw the note stuck under my windshield. I thought it was going to be a sorry-I-hit-your-car
kind of note, so I grumbled to myself, asking the universe, “What now?” It wasn’t that though. It was a note from that poor girl who was at the bar the night of the shooting. That’s how I keep referring to it—the night of the shooting. At some point, I’m going to have to accept that it was the night my son shot people.

  For whatever reason, the girl, Tessa, left me her phone number. And for whatever reason, I want to use it—if only to make sure she’s okay, to assuage my own guilt about that night. I hear Jed’s voice again: Mom, this isn’t about you. I want to shout at him: You did this and I’m your mother, so you’ve made this about me.

  The TV is still on in the living room. Gary must have forgotten to turn it off. I go in search of the remote and find him on the couch, sitting up, his head hanging forward awkwardly, like someone trying to sleep on an airplane. He was waiting up for me—or trying to. Gary is usually unyielding about his nine o’clock bedtime.

  I tap him gently on the shoulder. I would leave him be except that I know he’ll have a neck ache in the morning if he stays sleeping as he is. He stirs.

  “You’re home,” he says, suddenly alert.

  Home.

  As if we live here together.

  “How was it?” he asks. He leans forward, palms on his knees.

  “It was fine,” I say, though it wasn’t “fine.” It was awful— awful to see loved ones of the people my son killed, awful to hear their sobs, awful to realize the impact of what he did. I don’t regret going though. I deserve the awfulness. My son is not here to suffer the consequences of his actions, so I will do that for him. It will be my last sacrifice for him, as his mother.

  “You didn’t have to wait up,” I say.

  “Sure I did,” he says.

  “Well, thank you. I’m going to head to bed then.”

  I turn to go to the bedroom that’s become “my bedroom,” but Gary says, “Hold on a sec.”

  I think this is when he will tell me that we need to talk about when I’ll be going back home—to my real home. That’s why he waited up, to have this conversation.

  “I found a funeral home,” he says. “It’s in Caldwell. Family-run. Really nice people.”

  Caldwell is a half-hour drive, on a good day.

  “Oh,” I say. “Thank you.”

  “I put down the deposit and—”

  “You didn’t have to do that,” I say.

  He waves me off. “They need to know when you want to do the service. I wasn’t sure what to tell ’em. Didn’t know if you needed time to invite people and whatnot.”

  Invite people? I can’t imagine who on earth would want to come to my son’s funeral. I’ve had some very-extended family members reach out to me, before I deleted my Facebook account. But they didn’t know Jed. They didn’t love him. I don’t know any of Jed’s friends. There are coworkers at Home Depot, but I don’t want to have a funeral service with just me and some Home Depot employees.

  “The service is really just for me,” I admit.

  Gary doesn’t seem surprised. “Well, I hope I can go too,” he says.

  I can’t help but smile, even though we’re talking about the worst possible thing.

  “Okay, then,” I say. “You and me.”

  He nods. It’s settled.

  “When?” he asks.

  I shrug. “Wednesday? Thursday?”

  He nods again. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Thank you,” I tell him.

  I give him a little wave and retreat to my bedroom.

  I change into what’s become my pajama shirt—an old T-shirt with an Albertsons logo on the front of it, something I got at a company picnic years ago. They had only extra-extra larges, so it has no use apart from sleeping. As I fold my jeans and put them back in the one drawer I’ve allowed myself to use (I keep reminding myself this situation is temporary), I take out the Post-it note in the pocket and read it again.

  Then I do something impulsive and probably stupid.

  I text Tessa.

  This is Joyce, from the vigil. Got your note. I know it’s late. Just wanted to make sure you were feeling okay.

  I get into bed, not expecting a response at this hour. I turn off the bedside light and close my eyes. Then I hear my phone buzz. I reach for it.

  Hi, Joyce. Good to hear from you. This might sound weird, but do you want to meet up for coffee sometime?

  It does sound weird. But I suppose she doesn’t know who I am. If she did, she wouldn’t want to have coffee with me. I text back:

  Sure. I’d like that.

  She suggests tomorrow at a coffee shop called Bean There, Done That. And, just like that, I have a date with one of the people who escaped my son’s wrath. I hear him again: Mom, this isn’t about you.

  I whisper back to him, “Yes, it is.”

  ROBERT LANG

  VICTIM #3

  I GUESS I SHOULD have known. If Marilyn were still alive, that’s what she would say. I can hear her now: “You’ve been bleeding out of your ass for a few months and you didn’t think you were dying?” Marilyn isn’t here though. Cancer took her a couple years ago. It’s my turn now. According to the doctors, I’ll get to see her soon—six months to a year, they told me today.

  I don’t much feel like going to Ray’s, but I haven’t missed a Thursday at Ray’s in as long as I can remember. The guys and I, it’s our thing. It’s been our thing since Rick, Cliff, Randy, and I were in our forties, dealing with all the things forty-year-old men deal with: ball-and-chain jobs, nagging wives, narcissistic teenagers. We’re retired now. Our kids are all grown, and the wives nag less (probably because the kids are all grown). Rick, Cliff, and Randy still have their wives, something I envy. They’re careful not to complain about them, even though I’m sure it’s warranted at times. They know I wish I had the luxury of complaining about Marilyn.

  When I show up, they’re there, at our usual table in the back. They’ve each downed a quarter of their beers already; my full pint is sitting in front of an empty stool, waiting for me.

  “Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Rick says, standing and giving me a clap on the back.

  Rick always acts like it’s been years since we’ve seen each other, though we do this every week.

  “You losin’ weight, Bob?” Cliff says, scanning me up and down.

  I am, in fact. According to the doctor’s scale, I’m about twenty pounds less than I used to be. I’d noticed it happening over the last month or so but blamed it on not having Marilyn around to cook for me. I’m completely useless on my own, something I’m not too proud to admit. The doctor said weight loss is one of the symptoms. And weakness and fatigue, which I’ve also had. I blamed that on Marilyn too. My body was tired without her, finding little in life deserving of energy.

  “I am down a few pounds,” I say, tugging at the belt buckle of my jeans, demonstrating the small gap between it and my still-round belly.

  On my drive here, I debated whether or not I should tell the guys. Rick told all of us when he found out he has Parkinson’s. He made an event of it, announced it before we even got our beers: “Guys, I have some bad news to share with you.” We all clapped him on the back, the male sign of affection, said we would be there for him however he needed. It was the first health crisis for our immediate group. Marilyn’s passing was the first death.

  I just don’t want to tell them though. Not now, at least. Not before I tell Greta. Greta is our daughter—mine and Marilyn’s—our only child. When we first got married, Marilyn wanted a litter of kids, but that wasn’t in the cards for us. It took us years to get pregnant with Greta. By the time she came, we were so grateful to have her that we didn’t want to press our luck. Greta looks so much like Marilyn these days—same auburn tinge to her brown hair, same lines around her eyes when she smiles. She turns thirty next month. Her husband’s throwing her a big party. I can’t tell her about the cancer before then. She’s just now getting her footing after her mother’s passing. I can’t hit her with this.

>   “You want another?” Randy asks me, rising from his stool and heading toward the bar.

  I’m the only one of us who hasn’t finished his first beer.

  “Nah, I’m okay,” I say. “In a bit, maybe.”

  “Guess you’re a lightweight now,” Cliff teases.

  WE SPEND AN hour talking about the things men our age talk about—local news, sports, our adult children, the things we do to fill our time because we don’t work anymore. Men become strange creatures when they don’t have official jobs. They tinker. Rick has started a little piano repair business. Cliff makes homemade ice cream, brings it to us in cardboard pints because he says Gina (his wife) is fed up with the lack of freezer space. Randy golfs when the weather allows, goes bowling when it doesn’t. I don’t really have a thing. Marilyn and I used to go for our morning walks, do crosswords together, garden (never very successfully). My thing seems to be missing her, which is pitiful, I know.

  I notice a guy come into the bar, a guy I’ve seen before. I keep tabs. In what feels like a past life, I was an officer with the Boise Police Department. I’m used to noticing signs of trouble. The guy seems frazzled. He sits at the bar. I watch the bartender, a twenty-something named Tessa who the guys and I are hesitant to like because it feels disloyal to the old bartender, Heather. We all loved Heather, had innocent crushes on her. She was in her late forties, so closer in age to us than Tessa. Tessa reminds us too much of our daughters.

  Tessa hands the guy a beer. He appears to calm down.

  Then another guy comes into the bar. This guy seems angry, his footsteps forceful and fast. On instinct, I rise from my stool. I see Rick watch me.

  “Bob?” Rick says.

  He knows I see something.

  He has a gun, the guy.

  I go toward him. Rick is behind me, on my heels. He must see the gun too.

  The guy with the gun shoves a woman out of his way. She falls to the ground. A man, the woman’s husband or boyfriend probably, approaches the guy. The guy shoots. The woman screams, scrambles to her feet. He shoots her too.

  “Hey!” I shout, now running toward the guy with the gun.

  The bar erupts in a frenzy of people screaming, running. I see Tessa at the bar, just standing there.