A Heroes' Brotherhood
by Freya-Kendra
Rating: G
Summary: A soldier's funeral, a cop's funeral, a pensive Guide, and a confident
Sentinel.
This little ficlet
is another one those real-life-based scenarios. The article Blair refers to is
true; all the details as noted are exactly as reported by both my local paper
and the city paper yesterday morning (although I didn't read either until last
night). Also, the childhood story Blair shares with Jim is a true story from my
own life, with these minor adjustments: I was the one in the city park, not Blair ; I was playing tennis, not baseball; and I was 16,
not 13. Oh, and the funeral I later attended was for the parent of a friend of
the family, whereas for Blair it was the parent of a friend of Naomi's.
(I apologize for temporarily getting sidelined away from finishing OUTNUMB3RED,
but sometimes you've just got to go where the muses take you....)
* * *
A Heroes' Brotherhood, by Freya-Kendra
* * *
On a quiet, July morning, while both Jim and Blair took a rare opportunity to
sit back, sip coffee and read the paper, Jim found his own relaxed thoughts
disrupted by a catch in his friend's breathing.
"I don't believe it," Blair said softly a moment later. "That's
just ... wrong."
"What is, Chief?"
When Blair gazed up at him there was a sad, soulful look in the younger man's
eyes. "This article; it's about two people who were fired from the market
they worked for because they stopped to watch a funeral procession and didn't
clock out." He shook his head, seeming dumbfounded. "It was a
soldier's funeral procession, Jim. There were over three hundred cars. How
could you not stop to watch that? I mean ... I
...."
It was clear to Jim there was more to the story, more than what was written in
the paper. Still, he chose to wait in watchful silence rather than prod
Sandburg to continue.
"I remember once," Blair said finally, "when I was a kid --
about thirteen, I think. I was playing in a city park with some friends and
...." He took a deep breath as he reached further back in his mind.
"A local cop had been killed in the line of duty just a few days before
that. The park was on the corner where two major roads intersected, so there
was always a lot of traffic. But on that day, somewhere in the middle of our
ball game I noticed that the flow of traffic had changed. It seemed to stall on
the one road, just going nowhere and backing up for, I don't know, miles maybe
-- eventually, anyway. But on the other road the cars just kept going, as
though the traffic lights were stuck on green. But the traffic also seemed to
be moving too slowly.
"I remember having my mitt up to catch a ball," Sandburg, his gaze
distant, raised his hands as though the ball was still falling toward him,
"when I just couldn't help but look at the road. And then I couldn't help
but stare."
His hands dropped back to the table. "I didn't make the catch," Blair
quipped. "But I didn't care. I was ... I don't know, in awe, maybe. I
realized I was witnessing the funeral procession for the cop. It was like this
endless stream of cars. They just kept coming and coming. And in between all
the regular cars were police cars from all over the country -- even from
Canada. My friends and I tried counting how many different cities and states
were represented, but we just couldn't keep up. There were motorcycle cops,
squad cars, everything you could imagine."
Jim nodded. "It's the brotherhood, Sandburg. You kill one cop, you impact the entire police community."
"Yeah, I know. And watching that, that day, I guess I learned to respect
that brotherhood, whether or not Naomi wanted me to. Part of me started to
dream I could be a part of something like that some day; another part realized
I never would."
"You are part of it, Blair."
"Thanks, but no I'm not. Not really. And the thing is," he added quickly,
before Jim could get a chance to argue, "I knew the church they were going
to. In fact, I went to a funeral there just a few months later, and I remember
how empty it was. I imagined how packed it had to have been for that cop, and
yet, when we went to pay our respects to the mother of one of Naomi's friends,
it was just so ... empty.
"The whole thing, it just left me with so many contradictory thoughts. I
respected the whole idea of the fallen hero, and at the same time I wondered
why the death of someone's mother should go so unnoticed, you know? But then, of course you can't have the city shut down
every time someone dies. It's a city. People die every day. You just can't stop
everything everyday. And ... you can't mourn
everyone, everyday. I mean, talk about some serious depression." He
chuckled, but there was no humor in it.
"No man is an island, entire of itself," Jim recited from memory. "But a part of the main, a piece of the whole. Every
man's death diminishes me."
Blair looked up at him, astonishment evident in the wide look to his eyes, the
slight upward curve of his lips. "John Donne," he acknowledged.
"I'm impressed. Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for all of us
eventually. But it's the fallen hero, the one whose life is given in the
protection of others so that we don't die needlessly, violently, before our
time, that's the one we all have to take the time to memorialize. By mourning
that one death among many, we actually do two things. We mourn the fact that
there is one less hero out there to protect us, to keep the bell from tolling
for us too soon; and we also force ourselves to recognize how fortunate we are
to still have heroes out there, protecting us.
"Seeing a cop's funeral procession, seeing all those other cops out there
en force, so to speak -- many of whom probably never even met the man -- that
helps us all to remember that second part, the fact that there are more heroes
out there, that the loss of one affects the whole but the whole will not fall
as a result."
Blair finally took a moment to breathe. "I guess all I'm saying is, it made sense that I was affected by that cop's funeral
procession all those years ago. And it makes sense that the employees at that
market were affected by the funeral procession for that soldier. Whether or not
you agree with the war, you have to respect the fact that he died believing he
was doing what he had to do. Some will mourn him for the reasons I've already
applied to the cop's death. Others will mourn him because they believe he died
needlessly. But they all mourn him because they feel the need to recognize the
loss. And when you see all those mourners, all those people sharing a common
need to memorialize that kind of loss, when you see all those cars, you can't
help but become a part of it too. How could you fire someone for getting caught
up in something like that?"
"I read that article, too," Jim said then. "As I recall, it said
other employees did clock out, and they complained to management about the two
who didn't."
"Even so, Jim; I mean, come on. It was wrong to fire them, regardless.
Dock their pay if you're going to be that callous, but don't fire them for
being human."
"I agree," Jim replied. "For what's it's
worth," he added a moment later, "I agree with everything you've
said, except for one, minor detail."
Jim leaned forward across the table, forcing his partner's curious gaze to
recognize the intensity -- and the truth -- in his own. "You are a part of
the brotherhood," he insisted, "because you are one of the heroes."
end