Free Fall

69

There’s a video game I sometimes play called NCAA Football by EA Sports.

In the “Road To Glory” mode, you can flick a trigger on the game controller and enter hyper reality. The action slides into super slow motion so you can see every little detail of the play while you’re in the middle of running it.

This is what happens when I tug back on the trigger to my Glock.

I can see blood arcing in bursts out of Ceepak’s leg, keeping time to the thundering beats of my own amped-up heart.

His father hit him in the femoral artery.

My partner is going to bleed out, right here on the boardwalk, if those paramedics don’t start administering first aid immediately. John Ceepak is going to die shielding his mom, something he has done since he was a teenager. A fitting end for such a brave man? Maybe. But this is not his time. It can’t be.

I won’t let it.

And so I fire at his father when Mr. Ceepak’s hand moves half-an-inch closer to the green button glowing on, dimming off, glowing on, dimming off.

My first round rips across the twenty open feet of air separating us. I swear I can see the slug soaring like a guided missile to its target.

It slams into Mr. Ceepak’s shoulder. Hard.

He flies backward. Looks stunned.

But his liquor-soaked brain has been numbed down to its reptilian stub. It’s fight or flight time. He chooses to fight. He fires his own weapon.

“Down!” someone shouts behind me.

I hear bodies thudding to the floor.

Mr. Ceepak’s bullet whizzes past my head.

Glass shatters.

Christine screams.

I cannot turn around to see if she is okay.

All I can do is line up my next shot.

Mr. Ceepak drops his pistol.

He lunges forward and fights through the pain searing his shoulder to place both hands over that glimmering launch switch. He is ready to kill David Rosen, to make that his final, dying act.

But I kill him first.

My second bullet blows through Mr. Ceepak’s chest.

He glares and snarls at the world one last time.

And then, thank God, Ceepak’s father finally dies.