The streets had a cinematic quiet to them, or maybe I was attaching cinematic importance to my own actions—the lone warrior, heading into battle. I had threaded my way back to the freeway before dawn, feeling a touch of envy for them, those sleeping Omahans, secure in their single-family homes.
There was no should or should not, there was no choice to be made. If there had been a moment to make a decision, it had been that night when the phone rang, startling me awake. I’d been sleepwalking since then, haunting my own dreams. I was awake now, blood thrumming through my veins with purpose.
By tonight I could be in Oberlin, knocking on the door, the Colt in my hand, my finger on the trigger. Would Robert Saenz know me? Would there be a flash of recognition when I announced my name, before the flash of the revolver?
When Robert Saenz had pled out, he’d taken away my day in court. There had been no judge behind the bench, no American flag on one side, no Ohio flag on the other, no bailiff keeping a stern eye on the crowd. I hadn’t had the pleasure of seeing Saenz in an orange jumpsuit, his wrists handcuffed, his legs shackled, his movements reduced to an awkward step-shuffle. There had been no witnesses, no medical reports, no police testimony. I hadn’t taken the stand or looked Robert Saenz in the eye; I hadn’t told him who it was that he’d killed. In my mind, I wanted to spill before him a thousand pictures and plaques and trophies and certificates, a million words, nineteen years of memories. “This is Daniel,” I had wanted to say, daring him to look away.
Would there be time to tell him these things, or would I have to shoot before I could get the words out? I had the element of surprise on my side, because Robert Saenz would have no idea I was coming. He’d never apologized, never owned up to anything more than causing a traffic accident, never expressed remorse that a human being had been killed because of him. There had been no statement read at his sentencing, no letter tearfully penned from prison. Would he tell me, surprised, “I did my time,” because he considered the matter of Daniel Owen Kaufman to be closed? Or maybe, “I done my time”—why credit him with the proper use of grammar?
Afterward, I didn’t plan to run. I was no hardened criminal, determined to hole up in one-star motel rooms until my money and options ran out. It would be a pleasure to offer myself up to the Oberlin Police Department, arms raised above my head in surrender. “I’m your man,” I would say.
Twelve hours—if I could stay awake, if the weather held—until I could say “I took out that dirty son of a bitch for you. You’re welcome.”