Free The Arx by Jay Allan Storey

There’s no candlelight or gypsy violins. You’re a man, I’m a woman. We’re having dinner.” She held up the remains of her Japadog. “I guess I’d have to call that a date. Anyway, you haven’t answered my question.”
    “Sheila?” he smiled. “It’s a funny thing…Sheila was everything I always thought I wanted in a woman – beautiful, submissive, not overly bright…”
    Rebecca rolled her eyes.
    “I know, I know. I wasn’t exactly a poster boy for women’s lib. I like to think I’ve matured since then.”
    “I hope so.”
    “Anyway I guess in a way it’s kind of poetic justice. I think she had the same idea about me. I was the ultimate macho cop who could leap tall buildings in a single bound. She couldn’t handle the emotional problems and mood-swings I went through after the breakdown. She made sort of a half-hearted attempt to understand, but in the end it was too much for her.”
    “That must have been tough.”
    “Yeah, with everything else. It was just one more straw, like they say. Fact is, her leaving was the thing that bothered me the least.”
    “So what bothered you the most?”
    He swished the ginger ale around in his cup. “The most? Not being a cop anymore. It’s who I was. I couldn’t separate myself from it. The first few months I felt like nobody. Like I didn’t exist.”
    “And now?”
    “At first all I could think about was getting back there – getting my old job back, maybe even taking over the Lead Detective spot. After a while I started thinking: maybe it’s not healthy to make your job your life. Being a cop’s not like any other job, but it’s still a job. Part of me’s glad I got the chance to think about who I was outside the force.”
    A scraping sound of metal against metal across the square made them both turn and look. A kid on a skateboard was practicing jumps onto a metal handrail.
    She turned back to him. “What made you want to be a cop in the first place?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Was there some sort of ‘ah-ha’ moment when you realized that was the career for you?”
    He shrugged. “I never really thought about it – it was just always what I was going to be. My dad was a cop – not a detective, just a beat cop. Everybody always assumed I’d be one too.”
    “Where are they now? Your parents.”
    He narrowed his eyes. “Is this a session? Are you messing with my head?”
    “No,” she laughed. “I’d just like to know a little more about you.”
    “My dad was killed on the job about twenty years ago.”
    “Oh God, I’m so sorry.”
    “He stopped a car for speeding and the driver blew him away and took off. The car was stolen and they never caught the guy. I guess that’s when I finally made the decision. I couldn’t just stand by and let people get away with stuff like that.”
    “And your mother?”
    “She never really got over Dad’s death. She died a few years ago. Stroke. I just went to see them both yesterday.”
    Rebecca stared at him.
    “At the Columbarium,” Frank smiled at her confusion.
    “Colum what?”
    “It’s a sort of mausoleum where you can put the ashes of your ‘loved ones’.” He held up his fingers like quotation marks. “It’s like a wall of little cubbyholes with urns inside.
    “I’m not into any of that, but it’s what my mother wanted, so that’s where they are. You can put flowers and little mementos or pictures if you want. There’s a glass door and they give you a key.”
    “Well, that’s a new one on me,” Rebecca smiled. “It’s nice that you actually go and visit them once in a while.”
    A pigeon swooped down and pecked at the ground in front of them. Rebecca broke off a crumb from what was left of her Japadog bun and tossed it toward the bird.
    “So what about before?” she asked.
    “What do you mean?”
    “You said your father’s death clinched your decision to become a cop. Does that mean you had other things in mind before?”
    Frank stared at his drink. “Yeah,