You Can Just Wait

You'll just have to wait. That's all there is to it.  No, I will not go on television tonight to tell you what I'm going to say tomorrow.  No, I do not want to give you a peek inside my head.  No, I really do not.

I understand why you are asking; it's your job.  I appreciate the abashed tone of your voice and the reluctance with which you make the request.  I try not to wonder if it's a skill honed by practice. 

I remember when I'd turn on the computer and put in a load of laundry and return to the finally-booted-up-computer all those minutes later.  I was annoyed by the gap as I laughed at my annoyance - it was still lots faster than a snail mail letter. Now, in the race to be first, we have newscasters telling survivors in the ER Waiting Room that Gabby is dead.... untrue... terrifying to those still searching for information ... but first.

I get it. I like being first, too. However, I think there are difference of scale.

I liked getting the Sunday New York Times at Penn Station or South Ferry Terminal, late on a Saturday night, while waiting for my trip home.  I hover over my keyboard, ready to strike for an A boarding pass on Southwest. I'm preternaturally early to everything. SIR is the first car in line at the railroad station just as I was the first in line at middle school - Little Cuter expects it. And don't even think of getting in front of me at the buffet line; it just isn't going to happen, I promise.

First is okay, most of the time, in fact.  I'm just asking for a little consideration, given the circumstances and all......

Before the last hearing, leaks led to phone calls seeking comments on events which had yet to occur. I would not talk to you about something which had not happened, even though you had been told by another source that what you knew was true. You didn't flinch when I refused to get involved in reporters reporting on reporters' reports, didn't sense that I was judging you, that I found you profoundly egocentric and vaguely absurd. You didn't see the irony. 

You were wrapped up in the fact of the story rather than the facts of the story. Perhaps that's because you know from experience that the facts rarely matter.  What gets across is tone; substance is a distant second. 

Unfortunately for you and your day-before-it-happens-interview request, I care about both.  The substance with which you are toying is a fact of my life.  Bullets intersected with my body; that's a reality which cannot be denied.  The process attached to those bullets is precise. Speculation is futile; it's not real until the judge says it is.  I treat it with respect.  Amidst the emotional turbulence it was comforting to know that the wheels of justice were plodding along, step by step, inch by inch, no piece left unexamined, nothing dealt with out of turn.  The prosecutors deflected my what if's; each situation demanded its own resolution.  We didn't need to think beyond the next step.

So now, as we come to the end of the Federal case, you want me to jump out of line and narrate.  Sorry.... I just can't do it.  I've been waiting nearly two years to talk to the shooter; you can wait a day.