Vi: immediately after, SPRINGER leads PORTER, MARROT, SIMMONS, VAN ERDAL and RACINE into the common area. They look around as if unfamiliar, though nothing of the scene has changed in the fifteen hours that most of them had last seen it. The dim lights in the trophy case are on; the hallways remain darker than the common area, which benefits from numerous windows.
MARROT: Should we turn on the lights?
PORTER: I kind of think ‘no’, at least not until the actors come.
SPRINGER: Did you get a hold of them? I tried for hours last night…
PORTER: Left ’em a message, ’cause they weren’t responding to my calls either. So the reply was—
SPRINGER: —and from whom, by the way? I never got a name beyond Twin Cities Actors’ Guild, ltd.
PORTER: me neither. That maybe fits their message—let’s see… (getting out his phone, and scrolling) Ok, so after I texted them to get in touch, it says here ‘we’ll be there without fail, full regalia. in the spirit of the event, we’ll operate unannounced. yours, Phantom Crue’—looks like they spelled themselves wrong… Shouldn’t that be an ‘F’?
SPRINGER: Is this all you’ve heard? Call ’em again right now—we need to coordinate with them who will play victims, terrorists, how we’re supposed to negotiate an end game, all that.
VAN ERDAL: Maybe don’t even call it a game—that may supply their own agenda…
RACINE: And, so what is our agenda exactly? We technically would be off campus when things went down.
PORTER: True, that. I had it in mind that we’d meet the actors, have them set up, plan their…terrorism, without our full knowledge of course—
MARROT: sorta like a football huddle—
PORTER: yeah, you could say that, and then we’d exit for a while ’til the school—that would be you—
SPRINGER: Unless I’d be tied up and gagged…
PORTER: granted, but someone would alert us to approach, secure, engage as necessary.
SIMMONS: and negotiate, I thought you said.
PORTER: Yes—all that we reviewed in summer and over the past week.
VAN ERDAL: Spot on. We’re ready.
MARROT: Wish the actors were here already—would like to get the show on the road.
PORTER: Just take it easy—we have all day if needed.
SIMMONS: Unless another, actual call comes in. What was it last night, anyway?
PORTER: Suicide attempt. Talked him down.
RACINE: Really? Where, and for how long?
Pounding from the main doors cause them to turn around. SPRINGER recognizes QUAMME, TILLINGER, KING and TATE.
SPRINGER: Closed today—no exce—
QUAMME: (panicking) We need to know where Billy is! Please open up!
VAN ERDAL: These the Phantom Crew?
MARROT: I play basketball with two of ’em. And ‘Billy’ rings a bell.
SPRINGER: (opening up and allowing them to pour in) Billy isn’t here. No one is—the campus is closed for a security protocol.
TILLINGER: We know—we saw the notice from the website—
SPRINGER: surprised you’d check; I drafted it for parents, mostly.
QUAMME: Most of us get RSSed, and Billy must’ve too, ’cause he posted something scary on Facebook—
SPRINGER: Wait—have you checked if he’s at home?
QUAMME: Yeah—he’s not. His mom didn’t know where he was—
SPRINGER: Last night or this morning?
QUAMME: He posted at midnight or something—I only woke up to it and called Becky and—
SPRINGER: What exactly did he write?
QUAMME: I…can’t…
TILLINGER: ‘The school is gonna explode tomorrow’ and ‘good riddance’ and stuff like that!
PORTER: Is this a real account, young lady—you’re not putting us on?
QUAMME: (sobbing) No-oo!
SPRINGER: We need to get the counselor involved. (searching for DOSTUNE’s contact on her phone) Sharon, could you run to see if he’s in his office—you remember where it is?
SIMMONS: You bet. (runs down that corridor)
SPRINGER: Tracy, why don’t you go into my office, relax a bit—we’ll sort this out. (puts the phone to her ear, then announcing generally) Well, it’s ringing… Becky, you want to go with her? (to the phone, in a hush) Pick it up, will ya?
PORTER: Anything I could do?
SIMMONS: (returning from the corridor) He’s not in his office—it’s all dark.
SPRINGER: And—that’s odd—his phone stopped mid-ring. I thought he had an answering service.
From another corridor, just as dark, the sound of broken glass causes all of them to turn. As MARROT and VAN ERDAL start to run that way, the latter unbuttoning his holster, a similar sound from the direct opposite corridor, toward SPRINGER’s office, causes everyone to freeze.
TATE: What the fuck is going on?
PORTER: The simulation must have commenced—Tim, I need you to come with me this way, Claude and Gus, go as you were.
SIMMONS: I’ll stay central.
PORTER: Check that.
SPRINGER: I really can’t have students here if this is what your operation entails.
KING: We’ll take Tracy and Becky back if—
An apparent explosion from MARROT and VAN ERDAL’s side causes KING, TATE, SPRINGER and SIMMONS to duck and cover their heads. RACINE runs from the other side and across, pressing into his epaulette radio a call for backup, 10-80. Like clockwork, another explosion sounds from the corridor he had left, causing him to slide and join SPRINGER in a dash toward her office. They’re met by PORTER, TILLINGER and QUAMME who push them back to the common area, where everyone huddles within the linoleum circle of the school seal. There are no more explosions or broken glass, or any other sound for the minute of their collective held breath. PORTER motions a need to check on the status of MARROT and VAN ERDAL, who at that very moment emerge, gingerly.
MARROT: (in a whisper) Nothing really there, chief. I think this is a smoke-and-mirrors trick.
PORTER: (also in a whisper) What d’ya mean?
MARROT: Explosions seems a ploy to get us disoriented. Like phantoms, as they said.
SPRINGER: I gotta get more support than this…
PORTER: I thought you said you wanted people out—
SPRINGER: I don’t have any more idea than you, evidently, on moving anyone in any direction. What I do want is professional support. (dialing a number, and crouching further to speak discretely)
SIMMONS: Simulation or not, we gotta get these students out.
TATE: 10-4 that, lady. This is not what I bargained for.
KING: We came here to advocate for Billy, you selfish turd.
QUAMME: (still sobbing, if mutedly) If I could.. just talk to him…
TILLINGER: You’ll stay here with us—he can talk from whatever dark zone he’s put himself in.
QUAMME: Go to hell, Becky, you vamp. He needs me, not ‘us’…
TILLINGER: Tracy—
QUAMME: You jockish sense of heroism is what prob’ly pushed him to this mess!
MARROT: Girls, pipe down.
QUAMME: Fuck you, Fuzz!
SPRINGER: (lifting her head from the phone) None of that—I still hold court here.
PORTER: Technically, I’m ranking officer here, and I agree—(through his teeth) let’s all behave!
TATE: Those who’re making the explosions seem most in charge…
KING: (whacking him, and also through her teeth) Gavin!
PORTER: You said you got more support on the way?
SPRINGER: Do you?
SIMMONS: We need the fire department anyway, for those blasts—
MARROT: But as I said, they were smoke-bombs to deceive—
SPRINGER: Call them anyway—Sharon’s right: we gotta have more outside help. And—
Two shots fire from far down the middle corridor. The echo pulls them in like a lasso and hovers before a the rattle of machine-gun fire from the other corridors, in near perfect orchestration. A minute passes ominously with no sounds of reloading, as if were a patient jungle cat.
QUAMME: (whimpering) This can’t be Billy…
SPRINGER: (clasping QUAMME close to her, mumbling into her hair) It’s simulation.
TATE: Swear to God?
SPRINGER: (breathing out and looking to the darkness) Where the hell is Helmand?
Vii: soonafter, with regular rounds of explosions and gunfire from all around the school. ONAIWAH and BARNADINE embrace each other in the attic. Just one utility lamp is plugged on but not hung up, so the light barely casts from the floor boards.
BARNADINE: If there was only voices from a crowd, I believe this’d be a Presidents’ Day cel’bration.
ONAIWAH: I don’t hear nobody cheerin’ or crying out or nothin’. It’s spooky.
BARNADINE: Maybe they’re tryin’ to fish us out—some psychologic warfare…
ONAIWAH: I don’ think nobody cares that much ’bout us. Get us out to push us where?
BARNADINE: Jus’ push us around. Like we’re shuffleboard.
ONAIWAH: Better that than a dartboard.
Explosion, this time followed by vague voices shouting for an end. Gunfire answers and a tumble of unknown movement seems to intensify the battle. Sirens harmonize at distance and gradually add to the cacophony.
BARNADINE: They’re gonna come up here from the outside.
ONAIWAH: How can you be sure?
BARNADINE: Tha’s what SWAT teams do, an’ we’re gonna be firs’ in their sites!
ONAIWAH: Jus’ surrender, then—we don’ wanna fight.
BARNADINE: No, but we’re not the guys they’re after, either. Hear that? I think there’s more folks in trouble down there than’re perpetratin’.
ONAIWAH: So you s’pose givin’ ’em company’s gonna help us all out?
BARNADINE: I s’pose stayin’ put is gonna be more dangerous, like we’re hidin’ out.
ONAIWAH: Well, tha’s exactly what is. The good hide from the bad—
BARNADINE: But SWAT’ll say we’re waitin’ for an ambush. I jammin’ this board ’gainst the door to slow ’em down, and sugges’ we descend the ceiling hole—
ONAIWAH: Into all that shootin’?
BARNADINE: Maybe we can get the good ones in here—at leas’ that gives us safety i’ numbers.
ONAIWAH: Well then I’ll wait up here, throw the rope down for you.
BARNADINE: Keep the lamp off, and hide more in the corner. You know my whistle if I need the hatch.
ONAIWAH: A foolish lack o’ plan, this—
BARNADINE: like any day we manage thus far.
He opens the square and throws through the knotted rope they’ve tied to a beam. Descends and blows a kiss above before ONAIWAH gathers back the rope and closes herself in; BARNADINE looks to both ends of the corridor he’s reconnoitered before. He slinks from classroom door to classroom door, and down a stairway where he stops short but cannot evade a similarly slinking TIOSOOK. They stare each other down and slowly come together.
TIOSOOK: (almost noiselessly) Are you part of this operation? It’s incredibly realistic.
BARNADINE: (nonplussed, answering almost as quietly) Uh..m, that could be…, ’pending on wha’ you mean by ‘part’—
TIOSOOK: means you’ve got a role to play? I see cops and students but haven’t yet detected who’s behind the fireworks…
BARNADINE: So they are fireworks!
TIOSOOK: Gotta be! what’dya think? And who exactly are you?
BARNADINE: I’m uh, the watchman—one of ’em, least.
TIOSOOK: Nightwatch?
BARNADINE: Shifts vary. Night turns into day.
TIOSOOK: That it does. Say, listen to those sirens—I was lucky to get in before they came.
BARNADINE: So you’re not authorize’?
TIOSOOK: No, no—don’t get me wrong. (elbowing him lightly) Wouldn’t want you to turn me in! Truth is I’m on the school board, so when we planned this thing some months ago, I thought it good to give it an audit—unannounced, naturally.
BARNADINE: Sounds reasonable. But some of them explosions seem over th’ top.
TIOSOOK: I’m really impressed. From a handful of resources they got everybody on their toes. Well, you and me, too—they forced us to find our own shadows and pray Almighty not get caught.
BARNADINE: Technic’ly we caught each other, could turn ourselves in.
TIOSOOK: (elbowing him again) That we could. Say, since you’re a known entity round here, why don’t you simulate in your own right and march me to the cops—that would fit your job description.
BARNADINE: We’d get caught in the crossfire—
TIOSOOK: It’s not live! All blanks, as agreed.
BARNADINE: Awfully realistic.
TIOSOOK: Damn straight. Now—should I resist or…
VAN ERDAL: (spinning the corner with his handgun levelled at the pair) Down! On the floor, hands spread—now!
TIOSOOK: (shaken, but smiling) You got us—well played.
VAN ERDAL: (into his radio) Tim, give me backup second floor stairwell west side. I got two of ’em and wouldn’t you know it’s that old drunk vagrant again—
BARNADINE: You got witness here to brutality—
VAN ERDAL: Haven’t done any yet. Still thinkin’ about it.
BARNADINE: Hear that, school board guy? I think it’s time to end this ’fore it gets nasty.
TIOSOOK: I’m just—
VAN ERDAL: Shut the fuck up! You got the right to remain silent—
RACINE: (running in) Miranda? Are you simulating, or whata we got?
VAN ERDAL: Can’t you see? It’s him! The old guy we had in the clink for a day, now taking his revenge!
TIOSOOK: If I may, he’s an employee of this school, so—
VAN ERDAL: An’ who the fuck are you?
TIOSOOK: You heard him right—I am a standing school board member, the very reason you’re here today!
VAN ERDAL: Stay down on the ground. You have the right to (hearing SIMMON’s tortured voice on his radio, ‘10-54 in the boys’ locker room—assistance needed’) Holy fuck! Tim, you or me?
RACINE: You go—I know I’ll be better up here.
TIOSOOK: What’s a 10-54?
VAN ERDAL: Game over! (runs out)
Viii: at the same time, in SPRINGER’S office. URSKINE clings to QUAMME in a stomach-to-back clump in an armchair. TILLINGER kneels behind the desk, crying, and SPRINGER anchors the middle of the room, moving very slowly, if at all.
SPRINGER: He did that to you, then?
URSKINE: He did.
TILLINGER: I don’t believe it, Billy.
URSKINE: You don’t believe me?
TILLINGER: I don’t believe it.
QUAMME: Let’s just all believe, ok.
SPRINGER: Yeah, I agree with you, Tracy. Let’s be good about all this. It’s… um, it’s a good thing to…
URSKINE: Oh, cut the bullshit! The guy tried to fuck me and I wrestled away his gun, and except for those cops and firetrucks outside, I’d be in South Dakota by now—which I got every right to be, seeing how he tried to fuck me, and—
QUAMME: Billy, please, not so hard—
URSKINE: You can come with, Trace, ’cause he’d prob’ly try to fuck you too. There’s no counting on things around this place.
SPRINGER: Billy, I could help you get there. But Tracy has to—
TILLINGER: Let her go, goddammit!
QUAMME: Becky, you should just get the hell outta here.
TILLINGER: I wish I could just go home, and you also just go home—
URSKINE: Then go, then. That’s also what I’m expecting, right? So, Ms Springer, just let us get through the fuckin’ army out there—
SPRINGER: I don’t have that power, Billy. I can let you speak to your situation—that might be the best way to get out—
URSKINE: Don’t try to trick me. I came to your office as a safe zone—you can’t throw me to them wolves—
SPRINGER: True, true—that’s well put. Just let’s keep talking this out, ’cause I wasn’t trying to trick you, only trying to help. Some suggestions are, you know,
QUAMME: playin’ for time?
SPRINGER: No, well, not in any bad sense. I just—
QUAMME: hope the cops come here before Billy shoots me in the back?
TILLINGER: Oh, my God!
URSKINE: Aint nothing happening that shouldn’t, and why would I do that to the only one I love? Just get us out the fucking door, Ms Springer, so she and I can make our way—
TILLINGER: to fucking South Dakota? South Dakota State, Division II?
URSKINE: (jumping up and shaking the Ruger) That’s where you, prima dona, are gonna die!
SPRINGER: (shielding to the extent that the 10 feet between them could allow) Everyone here is gonna live—Billy, you can go this very second to South Dakota or wherever and I will absolutely walk you past anyone who’d say otherwise. I… I think that’s the..
URSKINE: You think I’m in some line that needs to go to the school library. Or maybe the gym to see a guest magician—yeah, that’s gotta be conducive to a well-rounded education. Or maybe I should see the school counselor as someone who cares about my well-being, when privately he only wants to fuck me. You still don’t believe that, do you? You still pay union dues on that one, don’t you.
SPRINGER: You’re smart enough to know, Billy, I’m not influenced by union dues.
TILLINGER: I don’t know you are smart enough—just let Tracy go!
SPRINGER: Becky, stay put please—
TILLINGER: like a puppy? or like someone’s bitch!
QUAMME: Becky! STOP! Don’t claim this like your stupid legacy—
TILLINGER: That’s exactly what Billy’s trying to do—
URSKINE: Keep talking, Becky, exactly like someone I knew just a little while ago—
SPRINGER: Really, I’ll take the pistol in my own ribs and guarantee you walk out of here—
QUAMME: It’s not about a pistol, lady…
SPRINGER: Of course it’s not, Tracy, and if you wanna go out, too, that’s all the better—come on, though, being stuck inside this office can’t being doing the exit any good.
URSKINE: Becky, you front us and tell any cops they need to go to the boys’ locker room.
SPRINGER: That’s good thinking—Becky, do that. Authorities need to get there, then we’ll all be freer.
URSKINE: Don’t be my interpreter, please—
TILLINGER: She’s your principal, and she cares—
URSKINE: Tell that to your counselor, who wants to fuck you up the ass.
SPRINGER: Becky, that’s enough—front us and tell…
URSKINE: any cops…
TILLINGER: yes, I get it: to the boys’ locker room. I’m going. Don’t shoot—
URSKINE: Don’t say that—stick to the marching order for once in your spoiled rotten life!
TILLINGER: Here I go. Boys’ locker room.
She mechanically exits, as does SPRINGER, then QUAMME and URSKINE toward the common area, vacant, to everyone’s surprise. TIOSOOK enters from another corridor, followed closely by BARNADINE and RACINE, who has his handgun drawn.
TIOSOOK: Mary-Alice! Excellent to see you, and in true leadership form—
SPRINGER: Jon? I was trying to call Lillian or Rhea, for God’s sakes—
TIOSOOK: What’s so wrong with me? Same capacity to witness, no?
URSKINE: (pointing his non-Ruger hand at BARNADINE) Is that the asshole who started this mess?
BARNADINE: (squinting, trying to process in this light) I’ve been called an asshole before, but wh—
URSKINE: (angling the Ruger to QUAMME’s head) Everyone down, except for clowny. Cop, you kick me your gun—and do it like a lawn fairy, delicate and no headgames. (RACINE, understanding, complies; URSKINE picks up and pockets RACINE’s firearm) Good. Now, clowny and Ms Springer, head me and Tracy to the door and don’t make any indications that it’s anything but a natural release from the headache this school day has become—make anyone who looks at you believe that, ’cause fucking that’s what the rest of us have had to do since we left kindergarten, fake the ‘what I learned in school today’ all the way to college applications—
SPRINGER: which I’ll endorse, Billy, as your long-term interests always are our front-and-center concern—
QUAMME: Don’t bullshit him now, of all times to—
BARNADINE: (continuing his pace, but twisting backward) Billy, your name is? and basketball your game?
URSKINE: (lifting the Ruger) Don’t you dare talk to me!
BARNADINE: (twirling an imaginary basketball) I’m only Curly Neal today—you must know that name! When you saw me last—
URSKINE: I’m warning you—
BARNADINE: I was more like Meadowlark, equally as fine, but something tells me you need dribbling today—
URSKINE: I will shoot you in the head—
BARNADINE: An’ I will take that bullet, boy, if you can break my press (he jumps away from SPRINGER’s side and corkscrews toward RACINE)—
URSKINE: (shooting three times at BARNADINE before SPRINGER wrests the Rugar from from his hand) You snakeskin Uncle Sam! You dragged us to your devil’s nest and (pulling RACINE’s handgun out to nail the coffin shut) made us mock our core beliefs—
TILLINGER: You preach it, man! Aim your message right at me!
RACINE: (sprinting at his own discharging gun) Aim it right at—
QUAMME: God, you fucking jerk, you finally—
SPRINGER: (clawing to bend URSKINE’s arm to incapacity) Tracy, pound him in!
TILLINGER: (diving) I got the other gun. Jesus, just too late! Billy, do you recognize these guys are gonna die?
Viv: the following evening, after mass. The church has a sombre feel of Tenebrae, even as Lent has yet to begin. A larger crowd than usual mumble as they lean between the pews, some hugging each other, most shaking their heads at arguments unsaid, if not unheard. FATHER FAYE makes his way from the chancel to join one group, then another, then another.
GREEN: It’s just…beyond…any—
SERENTINO: I can’t believe I was angry with him on Saturday—
FATHER FAYE: No, Anthony, it wasn’t unloving; you and Tim had a meaningful friendship. And now you have a bond beyond the confines of this world.
SERENTINO: Yeah, but I’m angry now more than before. Only my sorrow and shock are keeping me from exploding—
GREEN: Let’s not use such a term today.
FATHER FAYE: Psalms encourages us to lament—that’s the term we’ll use, and in the practice of our faith.
GREEN: Father, what is going to be the way we honor both of them?
FATHER FAYE: Prayer is boundless, Petra—and by ‘both’ I think you’re only referring to those who died—
GREEN: Yes, and that just one will have his funeral here.
SERENTINO: What else could we do as a parish? Tim was in our fold—
GREEN: I don’t disagree, Tony, but we are suffering beyond the measure of who belongs and who sort of comes along and… they come along… and (wincing, then crumbling into FATHER FAYE’s surplice)
FATHER FAYE: (embracing her) and they grace us for a while. Indeed we have a boundless fold… And a shepherd who knows each by name, lost and found and black and white…
SERENTINO: Drunk and sober, invading and inviting—
FATHER FAYE: Anthony, we need to see as Jesus sees, not as pharisees.
SERENTINO: I’m just looking at him now, standing in the shadows like it’s just another drifting day—
GREEN: (looking toward the vestibule) Do you see a ghost?
SERENTINO: One could say so.
FATHER FAYE: Go, then, in the spirit of Luke’s gospel, and greet him with ‘Peace to this house’…
SERENTINO: But that wouldn’t make sense: he’s in our house, not vice versa—
GREEN: I get your point, Father, and it’s not even that cryptic… (walking towards their focus)
SPRINGER: (incidentally, stepping out from a pew in the middle of the sanctuary) Oh, Petra, my God, how are we even here and… Goddamn!
SIMMONS: (next to her, nudging) Shh—not how it works here: ‘damn’ is not what we’re supposed to say in the name of God…
SPRINGER: (half-joking, evidently) Damn what we’re supposed to say—nothing we plan tends to work, anyway. (drawing SIMMONS in, and whispering) I’ll need a crutch these goddamn days like I’ve never needed before…
SIMMONS: (whispering as well, but aiming at GREEN as well) We’ll keep each other’s back—that’s the only rule I’ve learned to do consistently. Petra, how are you holding up?
GREEN: I’m frankly not. I come here every week and have no better way of handling—
SPRINGER: You can handle anything! That compound fracture on the football field? The girl who slit her wrists after not getting into Stanford?
SIMMONS: You saved her?
SPRINGER: Yes, she effectively did.
GREEN: I caulked it and called in time for help. Blood is not my bogeyman, so to speak; it’s imagining a soul-less aftermath, with no one really there to, well, as Sharon said, have anybody’s back. I wake up in sweat to dreams like that. It isn’t even necessarily someone I would know—I remember one dream that played out endlessly, twenty different nights, randomly: a woman in the upside of her broadcasting career—smart and pretty as any of us—sets herself behind the anchor desk and starts to read the nightly news, and—this is where I start to know in dreaming state that I am also not in any control—she plies into a rhythm. The nightly news is importantly mundane: a southside incident, Alberta Clipper coming in, and how we all at home receive it, somewhat by her tilted head and segued smile, or pursed lips as we’d all imagine. Then, suddenly, timed like a commercial break, she drops all telegenic pretense and begs what seems the cameraman or gaffer to stay calm—she’s preaching to herself, ’cause nothing on the TV screen reveals shows any effort to stay calm. And like that Pennsylvania politician shooting himself at a televised press conference, I see this anchorlady beg someone to cut away, at least, and then we see shots to her head do damage before we hear them ping, the camera goes wonky and the gasp of futility is witnessed in the seconds before it all goes to black screen…
SIMMONS: (mouthing a start, then pausing to let some seconds pass) You’ve dreamed that on twenty nights?
GREEN: Or maybe it just seems so much.
SPRINGER: (weighing extant thoughts) You take a ton onto your shoulders, Petra, as—and this will challenge my ancient merit badges at a church that wouldn’t recognize me anymore: ‘God gives us only such tests as we can handle’…
GREEN: Father Faye actually spoke on that verse a couple weeks ago, from 1st Corinthians…
SIMMONS: See, Mary-Alice, you’re not so ancient—
GREEN: I should catch another ancient in the exodus I see happening, but quickly— (drawing near to SPRINGER) did they ever figure out this ‘Phantom Crue’?
SPRINGER: You’re asking me? or Sharon?
GREEN: Between the two of you, I guess—which side of the operation would more likely know?
SIMMONS: (blowing out abruptly) Only the phantom knows! No, that’s worse than ‘lol, jk’—forgive…
SPRINGER: Forgive what? That those actors either played it out like geniuses or like fools?
GREEN: Clarify, please.
SPRINGER: They’re virtually phoneless—maybe a faktura for their earnings will eventually draw them out of their underworld—but, likely staying to some warped script, they texted your boss, Sharon, that they got lost in traffic and regretting missing out on all the fun…
SIMMONS: (under her breath) Those motherfuckers would have watched the nightly news. And if they had a modicum of your care and courage, Petra, they would have dreamed the newsroom being attacked, and not with theatrical props, either.
GREEN: We kinda don’t talk that way in church, but… (smiling, and reaching to hug them both) I’m gonna go greet the shadows.
GREEN walks upright yet with a head cocked like a squirrel, as if the world is simultaneously in slow motion and quick to grab what any possessor has. She turns back to FATHER FAYE’s announcement, nearly spoken as an afterthought:
FATHER FAYE: (self-consciously, if still practiced for projection) Whereas we don’t have details, exactly, we invite you to attend and bless the funeral of a hero and a friend, Officer Timothy Racine, who will be laid to rest in the days to come—please check our church website, which we will update by the hour…
SPRINGER: (distantly, to nobody—not even SIMMONS, who stays by her side) which we did not at all successfully..
GREEN: (having heard FATHER FAYE’s announcement, but not having slowed down) ‘Peace to this house’…
BARNADINE: (confused, but quickly recognizing her) Yes, um…thanks; peace back at ya.
ONAIWAH: (leaning in, like SIMMONS had done a few minutes before) Say it better, Cole: ‘Peace of th’ Almighty be also with you’.
BARNADINE: I don’ think nobody’s sizing anybody’s holiness, not even here, if that makes for some irony..
GREEN: I’m glad you came. I wish I could have been there just to see how you and Tim faced—
BARNADINE: I’m no hero, Lady. I lef’ my better ha’f in the attic for the SWAT team, for heaven’s sake!
ONAIWAH: They never could get me, Cole! We all did fine the way we was. Partly thanks to this gal here, who found me and huddled in—
KING: (not wanting to be drawn into the light, if smiling instinctively) I loved the way you crashed into our school—even if it’s not my school anymore, technically—
GREEN: But it is. There’s no one more ‘Griz’ than Beth King—you’re the one who kept that halftime graceful…
BARNADINE: You was present at that hare-brained plan?
GREEN: Had to be, as nurse on staff. And wanted to as well.
ONAIWAH: But as for crashin’, we weren’t tryin’ to, um…
BARNADINE: What Terry means is… well,
KING: You guys really don’t bear any blame for the tragedy—
BARNADINE: I never fathomed a Billy before. Never thought I’d have to worry ’bout what a punk could do. How in God’s name (since I’m here) did I press his buttons an’ push him to th’ brink? He got tools enough to raise the Metrodome when it gets sunk—I’ve seen it like a diaper needin’ changing—and folks who eviden’ly loved him.
GREEN: He’ll need that love like never before, facing life in prison.
KING: Is that for certain?
GREEN: The trial will tell, but the facts are against him: he’s already 18, he’s killed a cop, and—this is key—he’s going to be charged first-degree.
KING: Because of the Facebook post?
GREEN: That certainly doesn’t help, yet Detective Bream has debunked his claim that Helmand ever had the gun, let alone laid a hand on Billy, based on forensics of both their bodies. I’m not wishing any further torments on Billy’s soul—he’s gotta have one—but heaven forbid… (closing her eyes for a momentary search) he misrepresent the goodness of my closest friend on staff.
KING: God! How could Billy think he’d make a break-away?
BARNADINE: Wish he’d woulda break’d out from the prison of his anger. There’s nothin’ wrong with teaching how to bail when bailin’s right.
ONAIWAH: You learn that in school?
BARNADINE: Yep, in Aristotle’s, walkin’ through my thoughts.
GREEN: (trying to smile) Speaking of walking, how’d the hospital get you on your feet so fast?
BARNADINE: Bullet went clean through the bottom of this shoulder. It’s sore, but nothin’ more.
ONAIWAH: An’ Obamacare hasn’ kicked in yet to give him what he should.
GREEN: You have a place to stay?
BARNADINE: Never’s been a problem—
ONAIWAH: That means not exac’ly. But Beth’s been helping…
KING: least I can do. And… (lifting her voice as SPRINGER and SIMMONS approach) maybe the school could hire you as a watchman duo.
SPRINGER: (likewise trying to smile) Assuming it’s still standing after all the dust settles, I’ll put in a word.
BARNADINE: (playing off ONAIWAH’s gleam) Very obliged. We’d do our best.
SIMMONS: And maybe coordinate our future protocols.
GREEN: And present convalescence.
Exeunt.
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