JAMES C. MITCHELL

      Dark-eyed DeGrazia children in colorful serapes peered warily at Willoughby from the wall to his right. To his left was the hall doorway; no movement there. He lay on his back, as always. He barely opened his eyes in order to look carefully around the bedroom. His head did not rise from the pillow or turn.
      It was 7:26 a.m. on Saturday, January 8. Sunrise in Tucson.
      Stephen Willoughby listened for a few moments, reassured by familiar silence, comforted by the cold. He liked Arizona in winter. A dry chill persisted in the morning air even as the sun began its warming. With Sandy away, he had switched off the heater. He had never grown comfortable with what he thought of as the clunky machinery of a home.
      Willoughby got up and put on jeans, a plain black sweatshirt and a University of Arizona cap. Tucson camouflage, he thought. He stood five feet, ten inches tall – the average, he knew, for a Caucasian American male – and weighed 162 pounds. There was no sign of a gym rat in him, no muscle-bound preening, none of that insistent thinness that amused him in evangelical cardiologists on television. Although nobody in town except the best UA athlete was more fit, outwardly he was a regular guy. Stephen Willoughby wore his camouflage well.
      He would enjoy a lazy Saturday morning. Willoughby poured six cups of water into the coffee pot and added five scoops of Eight O'Clock breakfast blend to the filter bin. He did not switch the coffee maker on yet. He emptied the dishwasher, tidied the den where he had watched television the night before, and ate some raisin bran with the last little bit of milk from the fridge.
      He drove two miles to the Safeway where he and Sandy usually shopped. He parked, leaving himself a straight-out heading to the easternmost Ina Road exit, as was his habit. He walked through a small crowd near the entrance. The local Congresswoman was there, holding a Saturday morning meet-your-legislator event with constituents. About twenty people milled around the table as several others formed a line.
      Willoughby did not vote. He paid cursory attention to civic life. He was surprised to see that the representative was not some old starchy guy in a suit. She was young and pretty, looking trim in her UA colors: dark blue skirt and red jacket. What his parents used to call "wholesome." Her friendly smile seemed genuine. Nothing to do with him, though. Just politics.
      Inside, Willoughby bought milk, fresh orange juice, ground sirloin and two tomatoes that looked nice. A big cherry Danish beckoned, but he patted his flat belly and opted for abstinence. He paid cash at the express line and walked outside, thinking ahead to an easy morning run along the Rillito Trail.
      There was no time to register the sudden signals of catastrophe: the dead-soul face pushing forward, the arm coming up, then the rapid pop-pop-pop and the screams. Blood running. People on the ground, some struggling, some still. He put it together only when he saw the blood on his own sweatshirt, the left arm, and felt the searing pain.
      Willoughby's mind told him that he was not badly hurt. He knew about bullet damage. Nothing gushed from his gut or chest or a femoral artery. This was an arm wound, probably through-and-though, a piece of cake for some ER intern. But he was sinking, his back to the brick wall facing the chaotic walkway. He dropped, puzzled and angry and afraid, as his legs gave out. He heard shouts for help and cries of anguish. His heart raced and his breath came in labored spurts. He looked at his watch – ridiculous thing to do, he thought, even as he did it – and wondered if the second hand was marking the final moments of his life.
      His next sensation was a touch on his wounded arm. He recognized a face close to his. A tiny Latina, one of the grocery clerks, was kneeling beside him and wrapping her Safeway smock around his arm. She had been at the cash register for Sandy and him many times, always with a smile and a bit of chat. He struggled to focus on her. She raised a plastic bottle of water to his lips. The bottle was half-empty, so he figured it must be her own.
      When he looked up at her, she said, "Don't worry, honey. The EMT said you're going to be okay. They're doing the others first. There was a little girl." She choked out the last words. Tears ran down her face. She wiped them away with the fingers of her left hand. Her right hand tightened on his.
      "You'll be fine," she said. "You'll be fine." He tried to answer her, thank her, something, but no words came.
      He must have been unconscious for a while, Willoughby thought, because emergency workers were here already. Cop cars and ambulances arrived from all directions. Hospital helicopters landed in cleared sections of the parking lot. The pilots stayed at their controls, kept the rotors turning, and lifted off as soon as victims could be loaded. He saw all this through the haze of his own pain and confusion. Slowly he realized that he might be suffering some kind of panic attack, a predictable reaction of any normal person snared in this horror show.
      Ambulances and fire engines brought more emergency medical technicians. One EMT came to Willoughby, removed the smock and gave it to the woman holding his hand. She bent over, kissed Willoughby on the top of his head, and ran back into the store. Willoughby watched the man work on his arm. There was an astringent smell and a sting. He looked down as the EMT wrapped the last bit of tape around a gauze pad.
      "Lucky guy," the technician said. "Not bad, really. Hardly any blood loss. I'll send a doc over as soon as one gets free. Look, the police will have to interview you. When they're done, come find one of us. We'll check you again. If you're well, you can drive yourself home. If you're still woozy, we'll get you some treatment for tonight or at least have somebody drive you. Okay?"
      "Okay," Willoughby said.
      "You want something for pain?"
      "No," he said in the firmest tone he could manage. His head was beginning to clear now. Narcotic wooziness was the last thing he wanted.
      "Got somebody to call?" the EMT asked. He held out a cell phone.
      "No," Willoughby said. He thought of Sandy, but repeated, "No."
      He closed his eyes and waited for the next insane, impossible thing to happen.

      They kept him there almost three hours. He did not feel detained. He had no urge to stand up, let alone go anywhere. Someone from the Safeway brought him a sandwich and a chocolate bar and another bottle of water. Two detectives asked questions. Both quickly realized that he had little information to offer. Police photographers took pictures of the scene. He picked up his UA cap from the floor and pulled the brim low. He tried to look down or hold his fingertips to his temples as if he had a headache.
      A doctor finally came over and checked his blood pressure, looked into his eyes, asked him about drug allergies. He checked the wound and its dressing, then scribbled something on two sheets of a prescription pad.
      "This is an antibacterial cream," the doctor said. "This other one is a one-week course of antibiotic. It's tough on the stomach, so eat a bit of food when you take it. Your arm will be sore for a couple of weeks. That should be the worst of it. There's no bullet in there. It just ripped a piece of flesh away. If you have any fever, or increasing redness or swelling at the wound site, or any other problems, see your doctor right away or go to one of the urgent care places. Okay?"
      "Okay," Willoughby said again.
      He looked over the parking lot. The dead and badly wounded had long since been taken away. He saw only uniformed officers and men and women in dress shirts who had badges and guns clipped to their belts. The Safeway and the drug store next door were closed. His groceries were gone. Willoughby stood uncertainly, felt pretty good on his feet, and walked slowly to his car. He expected checkpoints at the exits, but nobody stopped him. He drove straight out and turned onto Ina Road.
      A scrum of second-string reporters would have staked out the house, he supposed. He couldn't imagine why, but that's what they did. His street was deserted, though. Nobody waited by the driveway. The phone was ringing when he got inside. Caller ID showed a number for the Arizona Daily Star. This puzzled him because he had given a false phone number to investigators. Besides, the phone was listed in Sandy's name, not his. Would they be selling subscriptions today?
      He switched off the phone and answering machine. His own cell phone was already off, as usual. He closed all the curtains in the house and fell onto the bed. He slept and dreamed of walking along a cliff above a beach on a damp gray day, somewhere far from Tucson. The little girls from the DeGrazia paintings chased him to the cliff's edge.

      When Willoughby awoke, he was astonished to realize that he had slept through the afternoon and the night. His arm ached, but the pain was not severe. He walked down the driveway in the chilly dawn and picked up the morning newspaper. The front page was all about the shootings. The congresswoman, gravely wounded. One of her aides, and a federal judge who had just happened by, and a nine-year-old girl and three others, shot dead.
      On an inside page, the story identified the injured. Willoughby's name was last. "Also wounded," the reporter wrote, "was a man police identified as Stephen Willoughby of Tucson." The paper gave no street address for him or any other victims. "He was treated at the scene and released. Efforts to contact him were not immediately successful."
      Willoughby packed his two suitcases. He threw extra clothing into the car trunk. He put his laptop on the front passenger seat. He moved garden tools away from a garage wall and opened the small, heavy safe. He emptied it: all the cash, $27,000, a handful of documents, and four other items he kept there. He closed the safe door, spun the dial, and put the garden tools back in place.
      He thought about leaving a note on the kitchen table but figured he could send one later. Looking in the rear view mirror as he backed out to the street, he saw a neighbor from two doors down come outside to get her newspaper. She looked in his direction without curiosity.
      He turned onto Oracle Road. He stopped at Chase, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America. The branches were closed on Sunday, but the drive-thru ATMs worked for withdrawals. He took $300 from each checking account. None was in his name. He noted the small balances. Keep the change, he thought. He knew that he would never use these cards again.
      Willoughby took his prescriptions to a drugstore on Oracle. The pharmacist said she would have the medicines ready in twenty minutes. Willoughby used the time to explore the aisles. He picked up Ibuprofen, gauze and bandages, and vitamins. He took a bottle of Gatorade and two bottles of water from the cooler. The pharmacist rang those up as she delivered the prescriptions. He paid cash.
      Back on Oracle, Willoughby stayed close to the speed limit. He turned at the absurdly named Miracle Mile, heading west toward the freeway. Did nothing wrong here. Got run out of town anyway, he thought. He drove away from Tucson, seeking cover at his next best place.